[sh4rks]

What's the end goal of modern medicine though? Immortality? You can perhaps reduce suffering to nil, but you can't cheat death.

[sircastor]

Wouldn't reducing suffering to nil be a worthy goal? Is there any reason we shouldn't pursue this to its end?

[sh4rks]

You can reduce physical suffering, but what about mental suffering? Would you want everybody to take a drug that will make them perpetually "high"?

[Brian_K_White]

What's the end goal of this remark? What's the end goal of learning to farm and produce food even when the weather and pest gods don't bless you this year? What's the end goal of learning to heat your hut instead of dying every winter?

[Panzer04]

Why can't you cheat death? Excluding accidents and the like.

[mrguyorama]

Because it will utterly end all societal development.

Imagine if fucking Ghengis Khan never had to die.

Or Henry Kissinger.

Or Carnegie

Our system is struggling under the immense weight of old leaders and the best they can do is pump themselves full of weird drug cocktails to have some semblance of being alive. Imagine removing the last roadblock to eternal life for the richest human alive.

[kennedywm]

Even if you solve for immortality, that wouldn’t mean you will have solved all of the medical ills of humanity.

We might be able to “cheat death” within our lifetimes.

[icehawk]

Why does there have to be an end goal? Why cant things just do the thing they do?

[Breza]

This attitude matches how my friends in medicine think. There's a thing causing suffering. Can we get better at preventing our treating it?

[fastball]

What is the purpose of this question? "Yeah sure, we're fixing people's problems that cause pain, suffering, loss of productivity, death, etc, but what is the ultimate goal?"

Sometimes the ends are the means.

[AlwaysRock]

I mean... Let's cure cancer and then worry about the end goal.