A Lesson in Caring

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I wanted to talk to you all about the light-hearted melo-dromidies that are afflicting my life so far, but I’ve found a worrying trend of pluralistic ignorance on a terrible subject and I feel the need to point out the horrible facts to you all (the few readers I have anyway)

I want to talk to you about a disease, a disease so heartless that it attacks love itself.

A disease so viral that, if you are merely in the presence of a sufferer, you will feel it inside yourself; squirming at the back of your mind, waiting for its chance to afflict you and the people you love.

I won’t tell you what this disease is just yet – oh no - I want to shock you with a few facts first – catch your eye with the truth, so to speak.

• This disease will affect 1 in 3 people.
• There is a very good chance that, if this disease does not affect you directly, it will affect the person you love or respect the most.
• This disease is NOT limited to age and can affect people as young as 30: in fact, in America alone, the early onset of this disease affects 200,000 a year.
• 5.4 Million American & 750,000 British people are currently living with this disease with the numbers set to rise by 2021 to 1.7million British people & 10.77 million American people.
• This is the only disease that cannot be cured, slowed or even prevented.
• Deaths from other disease are lowering – this is the only disease that has a mortality rate that rises regardless of treatment provided.

Do I have your attention yet? No? More? Ok:

NOBODY CARES ABOUT IT:

• Whilst cancer research received £2482.4 million in the space of a year to aid research and treatment, this disease received £32.24 Million.

 So, let’s round this up:

• This disease WILL affect either yourself or somebody you know.
• This disease cannot be prevented once it starts.
• The leading causes of this disease are unknown.
• If you were ever to get this disease, you will die in the cruellest way possible.
• Hospital’s and hospice care homes are not equip to care for you should you ever get this disease – if you have nobody to look after you prior to getting this disease, you will probably be homeless and die alone.
• The Hospitals and Hospice care homes that can provide care are limited to across the world so, for every 1 person who gets a place there, 10 more will go without.

Shocked? Appalled? Good, you should be.

This disease is reliant only on time to manifest. This disease is called Alzheimer’s.

Yes, I heard the collective groans and the sounds of itching-clicker fingers scrabbling with their mice to click the back button – STOP RIGHT THERE AND READ ON!

I need you to hear me out here, because nobody – not even your own government – cares enough to do something about this. It is downright ignorance – and for some reason, that seems to be acceptable.

It is almost as is Alzheimer’s is the last great taboo – the “reward” for you get for growing old or the punishment you get for not taking better care of yourself as you age.

Look at the numbers above, donated by ordinary people – not by the government – there is a huge that isn’t being filled. Targets are not being met for this epidemic and epidemic it is - the 6^th leading cause of death.

Death by other disease’s have lessening mortality rates each year. Alzheimer’s continues to grow every year.

So what’s the big deal here? People get old – IM a good enough person to look after my loved ones should this ever happen - this won’t be a problem for me!

Ok. You have to spend every hour of every day with this person. As the disease progresses, so will their mental health decline. Some are delusional; some are violent due to the terrible confusion they suffer.

You will have to feed them.

You will have to clean and bathe them.

If you were to claim benefits for them, it would amount to the same as being paid for 10 hours a week at the current minimum wage. You will be expected to provide unpaid care to these people for 70+ hours a week. For this reason alone, a lot of people DO NOT claim benefits for providing care to a loved one with Alzheimer’s or Dementia, which actually SAVES the government more than £100 billion a year with the total number of carers a year providing 170 billion hours of unpaid care (in the USA alone)

This is a WORLDWIDE Epidemic that only a handful of people care about. A WORLDWIDE Epidemic that, for every hour you age, you are an hour closer to experiencing.

If you’re wondering effect this disease will have on you when you are lucky enough not to have it but somebody you love is: if you’re wondering how a disease confined to somebody else’s brain could possibly effect you then I defy you not to feel heartbroken when they look at you, lash out at you and become scared of you because they have no idea who you are.

Are you scared? You should be; you have a 1 in 3 chance is getting this horrible disease – you have a mother and a father? Two mothers? Two fathers?  A brother? Sister? Plural? Aunt? Uncle? Nephew? Neice? Grandparents?

This disease doesn’t discriminate.

Yet, nobody cares.

Change that fact. Research the numbers for yourself. Show no ignorance in the face of ignorance, by defiance in the will to change.

We can change this, but only when more people start to care.

The Conscience Question

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As if to boil the blood of anybody who is currently struggling with debt, scientists have discovered exactly what women find attractive when men dance.
Are you ready for this people? Millions of pounds/dollars have been poured into scientific (I use this term loosely) research to discover that women find men attractive when they can dance... in time and to a beat.

*Tumbleweed*

I’ll leave that little bit of groundbreaking scientific research with you but feel free to silently rage with me.

On to more pressing matters:

Could the human soul – the very part of us that defines and makes us what we are – be transferable? Either between synthetic machinery OR a physical body?

The human brain – however mysterious it may be – is still just one big data-storage device; albeit a biological storage device. So what is to say that you couldn’t transfer one storage device to another body?

Consider the implications of doing so, both medical and ethical:

You’re in a coma but your mind is still very active, the person in the bed next to you is brain-dead but their body is very healthy. How do you proceed?
The Hippocratic Oath should at least offer the answer to that question from a purely medical stand-point but what about the ethical implications of swapping bodies in order to survive?

It could be argued that the person in the bed next to you has effectively died – but on the other hand, you would be consciously inhabiting their body so technically they would be alive to an extent. Does this mean you would become them?

In my personal opinion, the answer to that would be no.
If the human conscience (aka soul) is merely biological energy that is processed by the brain, then being brain-dead would effectively mean your soul has left your body. Hence there should be no ethical implications; much as there is not when we swap a kidney or a lung.

However, this is not the case. As human beings we rely on our senses to interpret the world around us, so John Doe walking down the street in Jane Doe’s old body would cause quite a stir – and not because of the sexuality implications – the emotional welfare of not only Jane Doe’s family would have to be taken into consideration also (It is her... but it is not?) but John Doe and his family himself. For example: Would John Doe (now in Jane Doe’s body) be able to find true love? What about his mental and emotional state at now being a woman? How would his friends and family react? Would he ever be able to find a life-partner and settle down?
This is assuming male – female transference is possible (and vice-versa) – would gender/sexual identity be an issue?

So does this mean that our human vanity would prevent us from undertaking (possible) future body swaps? A man walking down the street as a woman now-a-days still manages to raise an eyebrow or too. But in consideration; that is about 1000 eyebrows less than just 50 years ago. So would that mean in the future we will be more inclined to not just donate organs when we die, but (should we die of brain death) to donate our entire bodies too?

Consider the more immediate cosmetic implications: would we really be willing to carry the moral burden for the body we have always wanted?

Approach this very idea from a more scientific and sinister way: could body/memory transfer be as simple as pointing a device at your destination and flicking a switch?
If you have ever seen the TV programme by Joss Whedon called Dolls House – more specifically the episode entitled “Epitaph One” – you will understand what I am talking about.
As the brain is a collection of memories and knowledge – two things we can now share freely on the internet – wouldn’t it just be possible to download and store those memories on some external source?
I personally doubt it as all data degrades with enough time, but consider the implications of being able to do so and maintain it. Effectively you could live forever, a collection of thoughts, feelings and knowledge until downloaded into a new body.

Could mankind be trusted with such a technological advancement though? Joss Whedon (seriously, watch Dolls House!) and I am inclined to agree with his take on the subject. I won’t ruin it for you, it is one of the better episodes of the series, but suffice it to say we abuse the power to body-swap mercilessly.

So what do you think? Dance moves aside - Body swapping in order to save lives; would it cause more problems than it could solve?