From: Adrian Tymes (wingcat@pacbell.net)
Date: Mon May 06 2002 - 19:58:06 MDT
Doug Jones wrote:
> Adrian Tymes wrote:
>>I wonder: if this type of body modification were to become
>>routine (cheap, reliable, few if any defects, widely available), would
>>this spur a "height race" among the parts of the world that had access
>>to it? How far would such a race go, before stabilizing (if it would),
>>and what would be the cause of stabilization (limits of human body,
>>strained interactions with the non-"up"graded, or something else)?
>
> Heh. It would end when the users looked like anime characters or barbie
> dolls, with freakishly long legs- unless one could do the same trick for
> vertebra.
>
> Come to think of it, I have a vertebra (T12) which I'd like to have
> repaired, if possible. That and my L5 disc, both knees, my rotator
> cuffs...
Hmm. You know, there's probably at least one surgeon in the world who
*could* do replacements for that, come to think of it. But it'd be way
expensive since not many people are doing it yet (and especially for
tricky surgery which has to worry about not severing the spinal cord).
Price would probably come down, and maybe start to be covered under
health insurance plans, if more people were doing it (and if it were
cheaper, the increasing numbers of elderly would likely supply a
constant stream of patients). I wonder if there's a way to kickstart
that process?
(There's also the issue of loss of whatever bone marrow remained -
though those who most need the procedure probably have sufficiently
calcified bones that the most critical replacements wouldn't drastically
affect this issue. Or maybe space could be made inside the replacements
for transplanted/cloned bone marrow tissue, which would itself need
replacement in a few decades?)
> Growing old sucks, but it beats the alternative.
Agreed.
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