People would live longer. The average age of the world’s population would increase, which could lead to a strain on retirement systems and social benefit systems for the elderly. Countries might be forced to raise the retirement age to compensate for this.
Not fighting the hypothetical there @Johnny_Bravo - but a question - a very important question. What about the various issues that we group as mental illness? Admittedly a number of those, possibly a large number, are caused or made worse by underlying biochemical issues that would be cured by the hypo - but others may not be.
Or if they are all -cured- by the effect, I would worry about future mental illness sufferers - because the world would ‘know’ that it’s been fixed, so any problems you have are going to be blamed as ‘your fault’ - after all, if the underlying concerns that caused the situation are fixed, why are you still depressed/suicidal/etc.
Which brings up addiction - I think the hypo covers all the issues with biological addiction, but that’s not going to cure either the psychological addition (unless it does), or the memory of how good you felt when you were doing drug A-Z. I’ve heard that in many ways the hardest part of heroin addiction (as an example) - you get get over it, but you know you’ll never feel that good again unless…
And lastly, and I mean this in the most respectful way possible (let me be clear, I am NOT saying it’s a mental illness, okay?), will the magical button cure gender misidentification? So if you are male, but always identified as female, will the button make you a fully functional female? And if so, what about post-op individuals, are they reset to their assigned at birth gender, or fully healed and function as their identified gender as above?
Because the last question will create a WHOLE new kettle of fish. If it magically assigns you a fully functional healthy body of your internalized gender, that’s going to be a giant metaphysical stick in the eye of those who look at gender identity as some sort of mental disorder. If it resets surgically adjusted individuals back to their assigned at birth condition, it’s going to create yet another set of assumptions.
IMHO, based on the ‘moment of clarity’ exception you suggested for infants and the like, I’d assume that the mentally ill who are not biologically derived will have the same sort of clearness and have a choice to ‘cure’ their illness and move forward with a new mindset, but all sorts of arguments can be made for whether they are a new person who has inherited the memories of the past person or not. And similarly, that would be my answer to the gender issue, you are allowed to make an informed decision about the final effect, even if it requires ‘healing’ you into a new gender, but it’s your hypo.
A big upset, that hasn’t been mentioned, is what about all the formerly-senile (for various reasons) individuals who are going to sue the ever-loving S*** out of family/caregivers for abuses that occurred while they were non-functional. We read about those issues every day, but now that those most directly suffering can testify on their own behalf (maybe, those powers of attorney are going to have to be carefully looked at and/or overcome after the EVENT) I figure it’s going to be uuuuuuugly.
And on that note, my last prediction. Lawyers of every stripe are going to have more work than they known what to do with. Not a happy thought.
I’m going to fight the hypothetical, but only because I think the nitpicks are themselves interesting to discuss.
I don’t think it’s possible to draw a clean line between disease and normal ageing. Nor to remove predispositions without making super-humans.
Let’s imagine that there are 8 different bone types you can have, named A to H, that are evenly split in the population: a billion people have gene A, a billion have gene B and so on.
And, it turns out, that if you have genes B-H you will have some degree of bone weakening before age 50, and if you have gene A you will have strong bones late into life.
Will the magic button give everyone gene A?
If so, and if we do that consistently around the body, we’ll end up with people who are superhuman compared to us; probably stronger and smarter at age 40 than you or I were at age 20.
If not, why not? Is it because gene A was only held by a minority of people? But if we’re doing things like that, then the majority of people have some degree of artery thickening later in life, why are we curing that?
Well sadly cancer would happen from day 1. Cancers associated with embryonic and infant development would occur immediately and may be detectable within weeks, whereas cancers associated with ageing would also occur immediately but may not be diagnosed or be life-threatening for months or years.
This also links with the rest of my point: because, while (adult) cancer typically involves a whole series of mutations, which takes time, it’s also the case that those mutations are linked with ageing. Essentially, as you get older, you have more cells in a “semi-cancerous” state. So if you cure cancer today, then tomorrow you’ll have a bunch of people with cancer again, correlated to age. Unless you remove all the semi-cancerous cells, but then we’re back to superhumans.
I count allergies as an “affliction” (mine certainly afflict me). So they would be cured.
Which, I suppose, wouldn’t rule out developing new allergies down the line I suppose… unless the change is to the immune system preventing it from being oversensitive.
Presumably, those older people would also be healthier so less burden on society and more capable of working longer. People who retired due to health reasons might want to go back to work.
I think a lot depends on what the variants of the gene all do.
If gene A grants strong bones BUT if those bones do break they don’t heal as well as, say, B-H but B through D don’t weaken bones very much then maybe B-D will be kept. Maybe B-D confer something else, like a lower dietary need for calcium that in some circumstances might be advantageous.
Let’s look at another trait - sickle cell. Clearly, having two copies is not good and presumable those with sickle cell anemia will be cured. BUT - having just one copy actually confers greater resistance to malaria. This doesn’t matter in places that don’t have malaria, but malaria still kills a lot of people very year in places where it is endemic, and seriously affects those who aren’t killed by it. In such places having one copy of the trait is actually an advantage.
So… is the trait entirely eliminated in areas where it confers no advantage? Is it retained where it is an advantage? Does someone with sickle cell anemia (that is, two copies of the gene) lose both copies where there is no malaria but retain one where it is endemic? All present cases of malaria will be cured, but mosquitoes are a reservoir so new cases will arise going forward, the usefulness of the trait in a one-gene dose won’t go away.
Sickle cell is not the only situation where a defective gene is retained because it nonetheless confers some advantage in a particular place, it’s just (arguably) the best know. Likewise, some genes that might protect a person against starvation might make them more likely to be obese when food is plentiful and more likely to get type two diabetes. Or something of the sort.
This can get quite complicated when you get to the details.
Stuff like this is exactly why I said ‘everything’ and left it vague. I’m not sure - and I don’t mean this as an attack- that there’s any way to respectfully discuss stuff like that in this context. I don’t really want this thread to become a playful discussion of extremely challenging conditions. I would, however, assume everyone suffering from gender dysphoria would consider it an affliction.
That’s a super interesting take.
I would agree that the hypothetical would be creating a kind of superhuman species. Or maybe an idealized one.
That’s a complication I hadn’t considered. I think this would be covered by the magical moment of clarity. Every individual would be able to decide that for themselves.
Fair enough, and I tried my best to approach it in a cautious manner, and took a position that it too would be handled based on the individual targets preference. I think your ‘moment of clarity’ that applied to even infants and the respect for personal choice was the best protection from some of the dangerous interpretations of your OP.
Then in the spirit of the thread, since I touched on super-serious points in the prior post, I have one business that is going to be dead-Dead-DEAD before the situation rights itself - Baldness cures!!!
Figure it will be at least 20+ years before it becomes a moment of shame for anyone again except for the rarest of outliers, during which hair implants and the various drugs become textbook oddities until the problem raises it’s ugly head (pauses for groans) again.
You absolutely did, and thank you for that.
Of course, baldness seems to be a growing trend these days, so there may be some who find that the pesky hairs growing all over their scalp that they have to shave off to be an affliction from which to be cured by the magic button.
Same with a number of “unsightly” body hair issues.
This brings up an interesting point: a lot of medical-adjacent industries would be utterly devastated by the button. Optometry, prosthetics, physical therapy, assistive devices like CPAP machines or hearing aids, etc. Some people would presumably need these things in the immediate aftermath, but a minuscule fraction compared to before. Probably not enough in most given areas to even support a local provider.
Everything cured could simply mean that the world is in balance, not that all evils have been eliminated.