Really. According to Mitch Daniels.
Um, okay then. He continues:
Speaking as a young person, I just hope my new pancreas doesn’t go like those Firestone tires on Ford Explorers ten years ago.
I want a job at the boob bank.
What’s the pitting about? A poor analogy? The prediction that medical engineering will prolong lifespans?
Will the average person be able to afford to replace body parts as though they were tires?
(Will the average person be able to afford to replace tires?)
Hmmm. Looks like a prediction on the direction (and cost) of medicine, not anything I’d bother to get bent about… Maybe he’s right. Maybe he’s wrong, but hardly pit-worthy.
Will be. Not are. And they will be. Almost certainly within the normal lifespan of a 20-something.
BTW, the context of that quote was that he was saying we need to raise the SS retirement age going forward, which we do.
Good God, don’t we already have enough Spare Tires around here?
The Firestone tire thing was ten years ago??? Wow.
So can I count on a new liver soon? 'cause that changes everything.
So they’re cool with embryonic stem cells now? I can’t wait to work at age 70!
Thinking about it some more: does the OP implicitly put forth some kind of natural law-esque sanctity-of-the-body premise? I’m aware of the Catholic teachings on contraception, artificial conception, and other human medlings in the natural workings of the human body, but I’m not aware of a strong opinion against organ transplantation. (I understand that some natural law theorists dislike use of, e.g., animal organs, but that’s somewhat orthogonal, I think.)
Get in line. I was here first!
Of course body parts are like tires.
You’ve never let air out of your colon?
Well, I should clarify – I mean a strong opinion against transplantation per se. I’ve seen, er, cranks who believe that a culture encouraging organ transplantation leads to euthanasia (I suppose they think of doctors as greedy vultures, ready and willing to kill for precious kidneys and retinas). I see no reason to be against, say, medical technology breakthroughs that replace damaged limbs and organs with mechanical devices.
Can I get my body parts to be replaced BY tires??
How long, do you figure, before we read about some guy selling a kidney in order to get chemo for his child without insurance?
This is a pretty fucking weaksauce pitting. So the guy made a prediction about a long time in the future with medical technology. I don’t even find it to be that outlandish.
The irony here is that the medical advances that will give us these extended lifespans and radical changes in medical technology will be opposed by the republicans. OH YOU CAN’T PLAY GOD. Oh, right, when we stick someone on a ventilator because they’re brain damaged, that’s not playing god, but if we give them cells to rebuild that damaged brain, that’s playing god… God is a stickler for nonsensical technicalities.
Yeah, but God is a Republican. I read that somewhere on the internet, so it must be true.
I grew up on science fiction. And learned that a lot of sci-fi ideas won’t really work. I sigh when I see people who aren’t steeped in the science just assume that our grandchildren will be living in space, while others on Earth are commuting in personal aircraft, & all science & medicine will work like magic.
This is like that to me.
Great strides have been made in growing skin in labs for grafts and actually growing a liver. Years and years away, but it certainly appears possible.