Heartbreaking pieces like this do make me wonder... what is the better way to approach healthcare? For both doctors and patients, what would need to change? Is it like this everywhere, or does the US have a unique problem?
I heard a theory once that there is an artificially high barrier for who can become a doctor, and lowering that barrier by allowing doctors to specialize early on/not spend as much time studying fields they won't work in, we would have a higher supply of medical staff. As a layperson, this makes sense to me, but I also don't know what I don't know.
I have a lot of respect for anyone who works in healthcare.
There's already around 10,000 medical doctors that don't match with a residency program so they can't practice medicine. These are qualified MDs who graduated from medical school who are ready, willing, and able to work but they are told "no."
Expanding residency to cover all qualified MDs would be a great first step.
A lot of it is the privatization and therefore optimization of healthcare. Why does the hospital only employ one doctor? Yes, maybe they have the headcount and it's an actual shortage of doctors, but I'd guess that the admins have reduced headcount and are trying to be cost-efficient. (This is why nurses are perpetually understaffed; either they're actively trying to keep headcount down, or they're underpaying so the headcount stays open.) Why do they need tonsillectomies to take 14 minutes? Again, trying to "optimize" healthcare.
"I paused a bit too long thinking of a word and it just started responding to my obviously half spoken sentence. Trying again it just became stressful as I had to rush my words out to avoid an annoying response to an unfinished thought."
I'm a native speaker and this was my experience as well. I had better luck manually sending the message with the "push to hold" button.
Same. It cuts off really quick when I'm trying to phrase a complex prompt and I wind up losing my work. So I go to the manual dictation mode, which works really nicely but doesnt give me the hands off mode. I admit, the hands off mode is often better for simpler interactions, but even then, I am frequently cut off mid-prompt.
I'm a huge proponent for a produce-heavy diet, and I'm happy to hear your anecdotal experiences have been positive for yourself and others. However, I will say your statement, "If you tell them, hey, have 10 lbs of salad a day for 90 days, they'd say that sounds healthy but sounds too hard to eat that much." is untrue. I don't think anyone with a solid education in nutrition would say 10lbs of salad/day is healthy.
Can I ask what inspired you to go down the route of vegetable juice, vs other dietary changes? Rapid weight loss to the tune of 20lb+/month is rarely a good sign, except in the morbidly obese. Gradual, sustainable lifestyle changes tend to show good, healthy results in the short and long term.
Because I have had decades to eat a balanced diet and lose weight slowly. That is harder to sustain for a year for me, than having 1500 calories of vegetables juice for 90 days.
Once done, you've broken a lot of habits. If you can stay away from processed snacks and huge carb heavy meals, you keep the weight off.
Losing 35 lbs in 60 days is life changing for most people I think. After that it's easier to maintain a healthy diet imo. Keeping a healthy diet while watching yourself lose 4 lbs a month for a year is a lot harder for people... As we can see from everyone constantly expanding.
Not an argument against what you said, just an interesting anecdote.
I had a pool-related concussion a few years ago, and had to go back to the doctor because of persistent suicidal thoughts. The doctor told me, using more words than this, “This is normal, and statistically you are not likely to do anything about it. You should talk to your friends and wait for it to go away.” I was extremely frustrated that she hadn’t warned me about this at the first visit, in the way she had gone over other symptoms like light sensitivity and sleeping a lot.
She was right, though; the thoughts did stop after a few weeks. When I looked into it afterwards, what I found was typically doctors are advised not to tell patients that suicidal thoughts are a potential side effect, because knowing that made them more likely to happen.
Doubling lifespan is definitely a bigger impact than 4%, but let's explore what the hypothetical "perfect application" of this study to a human life.
A fairly average lifespan is 80 years, so a 4% increase would be about 3.2 years. If I were offered a "wonder drug" that would give me 1,168 more days with a loved one, I would take it.
Obviously that is not how science like this works, but stacking small victories over time is a way to achieve "significant" impact.
Hm, would you go through the process of GM your (otherwise naturally conceived) kid on the chance that their lifespan would increase by 4%? For me personally, OK, 10% ... maybe, 20% definitely.
But what stigma and complications/risks could they live with for a 4% increase in lifespan? What if they find out in 30 years time that their GM means that they can't have kids with their partner or something because there is some biological incompatibility that wasn't anticipated and it just miscarriages. What if some country is Xenophobic to the idea and won't grant them residency or a passport because they are GM, or they are eventually targeted by some kind of anti-GM hate group? Would that 4% be worth it? Like everything it's a risk-reward value prop.
Biologic incompatibility isn't as much of a concern. At least not with the modification in the article. Our genes encode a wide variety of proteins and enzymes that differ from person to person. Even people with significantly debilitating mutations havent had trouble conceiving. Even people with extra x or y chromosones do not have to worry about the matter. Though some men do have strange mutations like only being able to conceive girls with their partner.
The way you wrote this resonates with me. I've noticed the "pressure," internally sourced or not, that comes with building a persona in a community of peers you (for the most part) respect.
It's good in some ways because it drives behavior I would consider healthy in a community--thoughtfully reviewing a post before hitting 'reply,' respectful discourse, and thorough fact-checking.
But I also find that same pressure convincing me not to post, especially if I'm a novice in an area or need help. I understand this is egotistical in many ways, and managing it by "staying anonymous via a new stage name" is a really interesting idea.
As with most things, I think the true value of LLMs will come from use in moderation. In theory, having AI write an annoyingly polite email to a frustrated customer saves emotional and artistic capital that a knowledge worker can spend later on their own pursuits.
It makes me think of something Brandon Sanderson wrote that has been bouncing around in my head a lot lately:
"Physical labor is great for the mind, as it leaves all kinds of time to consider the world. Other work, like accounting or scribing, demands little of the body—but siphons energy from the mind.
If you wish to become a storyteller, here is a hint: sell your labor, but not your mind. Give me ten hours a day scrubbing a deck, and oh the stories I could imagine. Give me ten hours adding sums, and all you’ll have me imagining at the end is a warm bed and a thought-free evening.”
> It makes me think of something Brandon Sanderson wrote that has been bouncing around in my head a lot lately:
"Physical labor is great for the mind, as it leaves all kinds of time to consider the world. Other work, like accounting or scribing, demands little of the body—but siphons energy from the mind.
If you wish to become a storyteller, here is a hint: sell your labor, but not your mind. Give me ten hours a day scrubbing a deck, and oh the stories I could imagine. Give me ten hours adding sums, and all you’ll have me imagining at the end is a warm bed and a thought-free evening.”
While I understand the theory, it doesn’t work in practice most of the time. Labour work doesn’t let you think that much in reality.
i suspect sanderson didn't spend 5 years scrubbing decks. having done a good bit of physical work, when i'm done i'm not channeling stories i'm trying to ice my aching joints and worrying about how i'd make rent.
I've experienced the same with routine tasks such as showering or going for a run. I'll often put on a podcast or audiobook, but if I don't find myself actively focusing on the narrative, the daydream will be "louder" than what I'm listening to. I find I can go almost an hour with background noise I never heard before realizing I completely lost my place.
This phenomenon does not occur if I'm reading a physical piece of media, like a book.
I'm finding that I also empathize with what you guys are experiencing, but I never thought to call it a daydream. I guess I have a very fuzzy definition, now that I think about it.
We moved my retirement-age parents out of Arizona about 4 years ago, and I'm very glad we did. The neighborhood they used to live in recently ran out of water. The county does not have anything to supply the residential areas with, so if you want drinking water, you need to ship it in yourself. They would not have been physically capable of doing so, and if they were still living there, we would have needed to literally evacuate them.
I still remember visiting them, driving through mile after mile of pre-construction housing lots with nothing but dry, flat, arid land as far as the eye can see. It doesn't seem like a sustainable place on Earth for the standard American suburban sprawl.
I heard a theory once that there is an artificially high barrier for who can become a doctor, and lowering that barrier by allowing doctors to specialize early on/not spend as much time studying fields they won't work in, we would have a higher supply of medical staff. As a layperson, this makes sense to me, but I also don't know what I don't know.
I have a lot of respect for anyone who works in healthcare.