This is the point of thought experiments. They're not supposed to be unsolvable zen koans. They're supposed to help you identify and examine the fundamentals of your whatever philosophical model for a given topic. This one is obviously doing its job, because when you can construct statements like 'perfect certainty makes inaction as culpable as action' then you already have a richer understanding of ethics than say 95% of the population.

Many people give the opposite answer to yours; they don't think you should take an innocent life deliberately, even if it is for a greater good. Now, are these stupid people? Yes. And you'll find more and more of them when you recast the question in increasingly uncomfortable terms: Should you shove a fat man in front of the train to slow it down, knowing the five will then have time to escape? Should a doctor harvest the vital organs of a perfectly healthy patient to save five otherwise healthy people who happen to be in need of various organ transplants?

Real world solutions and complications to these questions are irrelevant. Petri dishes don't exist in nature but you don't slap them out of biologists hands and yell at them to do real science in the real world. And isn't the fact that so many people would decline to assassinate baby Hitler informative in itself?

Congratulations!
Saddened to hear about your daughter. As the recipient of two kidney transplants I know that's a rough road to travel.

Here's to the next 10 years! *quality

Michaela. Keiki Naia (the name she wanted us to call her). Born with half of a heart, Heart Transplant at 4 years old, and another at 5. Died during a routine checkup at Stanford 2 years later, one that led to urgent precautionary measures while they investigated an anomaly...one of those were mishandled.

Economic refugee? You mean poor people? I believe a nation has a right to decide who gets to enter and who doesn't, they have no obligation to let people in. Simply because there is suffering elsewhere in the world doesn't mean hundreds of thousands of people get to enter and change the makeup of a country. By all means, feed and house them, but to invite them in without a vote of the people who will bear the burden is undemocratic.

How many of those people do you think would like to remain in Europe permanently? Who would want to go back to a 3rd world country even if there is no war? I think these countries should give refugees an 18-month pass and then require them to leave. They don't seem to want to adopt the culture of these generous countries, but transplant their own. The guy in the video who mentioned the birthrate is right, in 50 years europe may be barely recognizable.

*ban

Hair Transplant
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3b5ax5_hair-transplant-in-bangalore_webcam

Your video, Russian volunteer to have world's 1st head transplant, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

That's no "Alaska Dude" ... it's Mr. Safety - the Mean Kitty's dad freshly transplanted from SoCal.

I can see it now:

"Eddie Murphy.... Adam Sandler in: "Two Headed Freak!" A remake from the 70's classic "The Thing With Two Heads.

Eddie Murphy is Maxwell Fielder, the successful CEO and founder of a bio-tech company, who is dying from a degenerative disease.

Adam Sandler is Jake Antonelli, a door-to-door salesman, who stumbles unto a murder scene and is wrongfully thought to be the culprit, but hasn't given up on finding the real killers.

Maxwell Fielder's bio-tech company R&D department, manages to convince the state to have a convict become a volunteer for a temporary head transplant."

No need to thank me Hollywood. I'll take my check now, please!

Wow, just wow.

Where is there any proof of this? Find me one type I diabetic who eliminated their diabetes without a pancreatic transplant, and I'll give them the world's greatest human trophy.

So far, ever in the history or medicine, no one has had their type I diabetes eliminated by belief. Please show me where this has happened and I'll say you're right. Again, I'm a Type I, and I take very good care of myself. I have poor genetics, which caused cancer in my saliva glands, but it was poor genes, not a poor life style.

The only time I've been in a hospital was for the diagnosis of diabetes and the surgeries for cancer. Aside from those three incidents, I lead a damn great and healthy life style. Where in your theory did I get my illness from. Science tells me it was poor genes and mutations, the second cancer was from the radiation to treat the first one. A risk I had to take into account.

Where do you get your information from? It is flawed and not based in reality. It's that kind of decision making that makes the world a dangerous place.

If you're going to make a claim like that, even when it flies in the face of logic and reason, you better have some damn good proof to back it up.

I can't wait for the time there are literally organ factories, where organs compatible with everyone are grown, in perfect shape, health and compatible size, and any need of a transplant needs can be met within a few hours.

@criticalthud - Pretty much completely eradicating smallpox and polio, rabies is no longer a death sentence, there has been a 55% reduction in cardiovascular disease fatalities since the fifties, there is a 90% childhood leukemia survival rate, transplants, bacterial infections are generally no longer a big deal...

This is just what comes to me off the top of my head, with research I could go on for hours.

Of course there are flaws and in some cases corruption in western medicine just as you would expect with any such massively complex and lucrative human endeavor, but trying to equate it with the blatant quackery of "alternative medicine" only displays your intentional ignorance of reality and makes you the butt of any joke.

I have no patience for this kind of mindless drivel. Somehow, it has become trendy to ignore the benefits of modern medicine. Honestly, I don't care if you die needlessly of cancer because you waited too long to see some western doctors, but when scum like you try to contribute to the general atmosphere of rampant unfounded mistrust of science based techniques that have an astoundingly successful track record, then you are trying to spread your inane poison and I have to reprimand your idiocy.




http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195150698.001.0001/acprof-9780195150698-chapter-18

http://www.cancer.org/cancer/news/news/childhood-leukemia-survival-rates-improve-significantly

All Hail to the vital people whom work at children's hospitals worldwide which imbue this spirit...Coping couldn't be done without you.

Michaela, our first born daughter (2004-2011, HLHS: 2/3 cardiac transformation surgeries & 2 heart transplants), brought us in contact with many wonderful people at Stanford's Lucile Packard Children's Hospital. We will never forget them either.

Speaking as someone with his second kidney transplant, this stuff cant come soon enough. Amazing Science.

I really wish I could *promote.

>> ^kevingrr:

I don't know. The Obamacare debate isn't that interesting or compelling. It seems to make sense that our system will be better under Obamacare than it is now - but only time will tell.
The more interesting question is how we are going to handle the coming advances in medicine with the "right to healthcare". What I mean by that is are we going to expend huge dollars to keep people alive at ridiculous costs?
I've seen so many cool videos on the sift - like a pig lung receiving gene therapy in a box before transplant - but all those really cool things are going to cost a lot of money. How do we most effectively allocate our resources and where do we draw the line?
Also, this video kind of makes its argument on an ad populum argument...

Most people don't need pig lung transplants. "Basic" healthcare (check-ups, shots, testing, dental, other stuff not involving pig parts) would serve most people well, I think, and it's a far better option than no health care at all.