ADHD drugs + brain

TexasFreedom said:

Hang on Kevin. You are only looking through rose-colored glasses.

For every 'cure', there is also the next plague. How many millions died of AIDS? Would it have been worth making a certain species of monkey extinct if it had prevented the AIDS epidemic?

So look at both sides. I'm not saying we should be out to make certain species extinct, but there are two sides to this coin.

Also keep in mind countless new species are still being created. A copperhead snake mates with a rattlesnake, and it's a new species. It happens all the time.

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No, I don't think it would have fixed or prevented anything by making the chimpanzee extinct.

Monkeys and apes are invaluable in medicine because they so closely approximate human beings, that we can use them to test medications and treatments in a manner that would be unethical on human beings.

I truly deplore animal testing, but the practice has saved uncounted millions of lives.....including my own.

And my point is that by saving animals and plants from extinction, we are acting in our own best interest.

Kevin, if the animals that AIDS jumped from and to humans were limited, then AIDS was eliminated. You can not believe that, but you'd be mistaken.

I'm not saying I want to take out more species but I am saying that not all species are good. Oh wait, my first part is not true. I'd be 100% good if the fire ant went extinct.

TexasFreedom said:

Kevin, if the animals that AIDS jumped from and to humans were limited, then AIDS was eliminated. You can not believe that, but you'd be mistaken.

I'm not saying I want to take out more species but I am saying that not all species are good. Oh wait, my first part is not true. I'd be 100% good if the fire ant went extinct.

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Of course AIDS jumped from chimps to people.....that's established beyond any reasonable doubt.

My only point is that the benefits of having a bewildering variety of life is a good thing.

And--something that seems dangerous now--can be life-saving in the future.

Let me give you another example.

Asia abounds with venomous snakes, and I'll use the king cobra as an example, but my argument applies to almost all of these venomous snakes.

In India (a heavily populated country of over 1 billion people), up to 25% of the grain supply is destroyed by rodents. This is mostly because of the Norway rat, but other rodents are guilty as well.

Venomous snakes save peoples' lives every second in a very subtle, low-key way because they eat rats. By keeping the rat population in check, humans have more food and are safer in terms of epidemic and disease.

A person dies every once in a while by being bitten by an errant king cobra, but if we rendered the king cobra extinct....then millions upon millions of people would die from disease and starvation.

If you run the numbers and stats, the king cobra is probably more beneficial to people as a whole than penicillin.*

I believe that many animals and plants are like this, including chimps.

Chimps may be the source of AIDS, but the lives that they've saved as experimental animals are--literally--countless.

And the reason why AIDS jumped into humanity is because people were doing things that they shouldn't have been doing. It was unnatural conditions created by people that allowed AIDS to become a human disease.

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* This statement is based on a rough, "back of the envelope" calculation from approximate numbers. My claim may not be exactly precise, but I'm in the ballpark.

Kevin, you seem to have a binary choice: rats eating stores OR king cobras killing people. We have a wonderful snake called the 'rat snake'. No rats eating stores, and no king cobra killing people.

There are other choices. And AIDS didn't just jump due to wackos raping monkeys. Eating the meat not fully cooked also was a method of transmission.

I agree that a keeping more species around is overall more good than bad (for most species, again I'll exclude some like fire ants). But there is a line. For example where californistan is passing billions of barrels of water into the ocean because of one stupid fish rather than watering their crops. Some critters just aren't going to make it.

TexasFreedom said:

Kevin, you seem to have a binary choice: rats eating stores OR king cobras killing people. We have a wonderful snake called the 'rat snake'. No rats eating stores, and no king cobra killing people.

There are other choices. And AIDS didn't just jump due to wackos raping monkeys. Eating the meat not fully cooked also was a method of transmission.

I agree that a keeping more species around is overall more good than bad (for most species, again I'll exclude some like fire ants). But there is a line. For example where californistan is passing billions of barrels of water into the ocean because of one stupid fish rather than watering their crops. Some critters just aren't going to make it.

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I suspect that you and I may not see eye to eye on this issue.

I think all species--even ones we don't like--have the potential to be very valuable.

Instead of fire ants, let's talk about disease.

There is a nasty parasitic worm spread by microscopic water fleas called the Guinea worm.

It formerly infected perhaps 2 million people a year, and now--because of the Carter Foundation--less than 35 people are currently infected with it.

Guinea worm infection is disgusting and awful, so I won't go into it here since the details are not neccesary for my point.

In any case, in retrospect--as medical knowledge has advanced since the Carter Foundation started fighting the worm over 30 years ago--it turns out that a powerful anesthetic, and also a possible broad-spectrum antibiotic are found in certian secretions of this worm.

I feel about ticks the same way you seem to feel about fire ants.....yet valuable, life-saving drugs are being explored from their toxic saliva.

Leeches--as awful, and nasty of an animal as I've ever been acquainted with--are used in transplant surgery to make sure that skin grafts and reattached limbs heal properly.

I cannot--without doing research--find a beneficial use for your hated fire ants, but I'm sure that there is one even if we don't know it yet.

All species are worth preserving......even "bad" ones, unless one wants to be short-sighted and/or doesn't believe in long-term investments.

Autopsy shows the Dayton shooter was on antidepressants.

Kevin,

We may never see eye to eye. I will agree that some species can offer medical benefits. Not all critters, and many treatments/cures may never get discovered.

But you are not seeing the other side of the coin. I'll go back to AIDS. 40 million people have died & 10's of millions today live with AIDS. Consider that tradeoff. Let's say there was one specific species of monkey that started this. I would clearly say that taking out that species would be worth the 40 million deaths (so far). Can you agree with that?

And we don't know which species will be the source of the next 'AIDS'. I'm not saying we randomly take out critters, but I am saying it's not all one-sided.

TexasFreedom said:

Kevin,

We may never see eye to eye. I will agree that some species can offer medical benefits. Not all critters, and many treatments/cures may never get discovered.

But you are not seeing the other side of the coin. I'll go back to AIDS. 40 million people have died & 10's of millions today live with AIDS. Consider that tradeoff. Let's say there was one specific species of monkey that started this. I would clearly say that taking out that species would be worth the 40 million deaths (so far). Can you agree with that?

And we don't know which species will be the source of the next 'AIDS'. I'm not saying we randomly take out critters, but I am saying it's not all one-sided.

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I agree that the disease came from chimps, but was a different monkey (ie: man) that started the epidemic.

Humans started the 1918 influenza epidemic by how we keep farm animals.

It was war, famine, lack of education, and so forth that allowed HIV to become a human disease.

Any species--from cockroach to bald eagles--can be a source of disease if humans don't do the right thing by nature.

If it wasn't chimps, it would be the rhesus macaque, or the black rat.....or something else.

Here in Florida, for example, we have monkeys that are introduced from Asia, and they carry Simian Herpes B. I'm actually moving to the area where these things have established themselves.

It sounds like a bad joke from the Beverly Hills Cop movie.....but Simian Herpes B is no joke. 75% to 80% of all people who get infected will die a miserable, protracted death....and there's no vaccine and no known cure.

Further, about 40% to 60% of these monkeys carry the disease in an asymptomatic form.

Now, my point is that it's peoples' fault that these things are here, multiplying as an invasive species. If there ever ends up being an epidemic, it's the fault of humans, not the monkeys.

And yes, before you suggest that I'm a tree-hugging liberal, I do believe that all of these animals should be eradicated with extreme prejudice.

In their native environment, less than 1% of the same monkeys carry Herpes B, as the natural world has a way of balancing things.

Here in the States, these animals don't have the appropriate predators and parasites to keep them in check, so--being out of natural balance--the disease spreads among them.

I believe that there were similar issues with humans blatantly giving nature the finger, and that's what really enabled the AIDS epidemic to occur, and what enabled it to jump from chimps into humans.

Eradicating chimps, therefore, wouldn't have made much of an overall difference.

And I do believe that it's only a matter of time until Herpes B changes into a form that's much more dangerous and contagious to people.

Even as an on-again/off-again vegetarian, I will ruthlessly kill any of these things on sight. People in Ocala and Silver Springs have a habit of feeding these things, and--being intelligent, and having hands--they occasionally open doors and windows and let themselves into your house.

They'll go through your pantry and fridge, helping themselves to your food and garbage.

It's always bad when people acclimate wild animals to human food, so I believe that it's only a matter of time until Herpes B changes into an epidemic form, and people die in droves.

It will have been people that created this....not the animals.

Kevin,

Do you not see the 1-sided view you have? Let me explain further.

You said a specific XYZ critter was a cure for ABC disease. And it is the only cure.

But with AIDS, you said if it wasn't chimps, it'd be rats or something else.

What makes it a one-way path? How about I say if the Guinea Worm wasn't there, they'd use another critter for form a similar cure/treatment? You keep looking until you find something that works.

Either it is a one-path disease and a one-path cure, or there are multiple paths going both ways.

TexasFreedom said:

Kevin,

Do you not see the 1-sided view you have? Let me explain further.

You said a specific XYZ critter was a cure for ABC disease. And it is the only cure.

But with AIDS, you said if it wasn't chimps, it'd be rats or something else.

What makes it a one-way path? How about I say if the Guinea Worm wasn't there, they'd use another critter for form a similar cure/treatment? You keep looking until you find something that works.

Either it is a one-path disease and a one-path cure, or there are multiple paths going both ways.

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I don't disagree with you, if I understand your point correctly.

Streptomycin will cure plague. So with tetracycline, and so will several other drugs.

There is more than one avenue to disease, and often there is more than one cure.

My point is that there is tremendous benefit in diversity. With a disease like plague, for example, I want hundreds of drugs to treat it......not just one or two.

And there are natural laws and priciples in nature that must be respected, and we render all these species extinct at our own peril.

As a better example, consider gravity.

If I want to construct a building, I need to use the correct design, with the quality of steel, xement, and so forth predicated on the idea that gravity must be respected.

If I don't consider gravity, then the building will collapse and maybe kill lots of people.

It is similar with other living things.

If we keep abusing the natural world, there will be more epidemics, starvation, and so forth.

That's why I'm on a prepper website.

After I wrote the above, a better example occurs to me.

Bats carry rabies, which is about 100% fatal if left untreated.

So--on the surface--it would seem like a good idea if they were eradicated.

Yet many of them eat their weight in mosquitoes every night. Mosquitoes spread zika, dengue, malaria, encephalitis, and so on.

We would kill far more people from mosquitoe diseases by eliminating bats than we would save by eliminating rabies.

So bats are worth protecting even if we need to divert water (like in California), or put up with a lot of other hardships.

Kevin,

OK, good, we agree on that part.

Now for the next step: what 'price' is acceptable?

For example, if to save a certain critter, all people have to move out of California. If we don't leave, that creature will go extinct. Not just Los Angeles, or one county. The whole state, and we have 30 days to leave or they go extinct. What do you do, you're the governor of CA?

That may seem like an extreme example, but assume it's true.

There is also the natural order. I've heard where lots of jungle frogs are dying because of Chytrid fungus. Let's assume the fungus spread naturally to the species that can't handle it. What extraordinary efforts do we do to preserve those species? Or do we?

And if you want to blame humans for everything, look at TRex. They went extinct long before mankind could cause anything. Do we leave them extinct? Do we play "Jurassic Park" & bring them back? Hard decisions.

As with your bat example, there are real tradeoffs. (BTW, bats are only one of many animals that transmit rabies, but you know that)

TexasFreedom said:

Kevin,

OK, good, we agree on that part.

Now for the next step: what 'price' is acceptable?

For example, if to save a certain critter, all people have to move out of California. If we don't leave, that creature will go extinct. Not just Los Angeles, or one county. The whole state, and we have 30 days to leave or they go extinct. What do you do, you're the governor of CA?

That may seem like an extreme example, but assume it's true.

There is also the natural order. I've heard where lots of jungle frogs are dying because of Chytrid fungus. Let's assume the fungus spread naturally to the species that can't handle it. What extraordinary efforts do we do to preserve those species? Or do we?

And if you want to blame humans for everything, look at TRex. They went extinct long before mankind could cause anything. Do we leave them extinct? Do we play "Jurassic Park" & bring them back? Hard decisions.

As with your bat example, there are real tradeoffs. (BTW, bats are only one of many animals that transmit rabies, but you know that)

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It's difficult at best for me to put a price on human life.

If you're a believer in God, then we can say that God created the naturall world as it is for a reason, and preserving these species needs to be a priority.

If you believe in a naturalistic world, then preserving the natural world to protect humanity means that these species must be protected.

Are we goung to render several extinct?

Of course.

Does that mean that we need to make no effort or sacrifice, and just do whatever we want?

Absolutely not.

If you want to save animal (critters) species, then you need to reduce the number of humans. Humans will continue to breed, out of control (no natural predators) and a Nanny state to protect the stupid. As long as they continue to repopulate at the current rates ( faster than the death rate) then land will always be at a premium. With the development of the land, the loss of habitat is required. Bottom line --- it is really not a choice of preserving the critters as much a matter of can the current species adapt to the changes. Maybe we will bring about our own downfall but it won't be from trying to save the animals.

You are very correct about overpopulation.

If we assume that man could--somehow--lesrn to eat star matter as food, and if there was no speed of light limit in the Universe.....then mankind would fill up the entire accessible Universe in about 6,000 years.

Plainly, something has to give.

Kevin L said:

You are very correct about overpopulation.

If we assume that man could--somehow--lesrn to eat star matter as food, and if there was no speed of light limit in the Universe.....then mankind would fill up the entire accessible Universe in about 6,000 years.

Plainly, something has to give.

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Yes and it will be the animals. Until they become the dominate species, they will always lose. If some new plague comes along and kills off about 90% of mankind, then the critters will get a slight reprieve but it won't be permanent. We will breed ourselves back into needing more land and resources.

Oh, you want forced population control?

Well that is easy, go for communism/socialism. They are great at killing millions and millions of people. They are not environmentally friendly (look at China), but they will both kill people and control population growth (because they can't produce the food to feed people). Consider the 1-child policy in China for decades...

a nice SHTF event should sort out the overpopulation problem, all within about 6-12 months with a bit of luck.
take humans away from their comfort zone, deprive them of all the systems that help them survive and see just how many can be self reliant, not many i'll guess, probably much less than 10%.

I am not rooting for the critters. They are on their own, same as humans. I am a realist in the fact that land and resources are finite and the population of the world is not. We will breed ourselves into a major SHTF event. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure this out. Also it does not take a genius to know there is nothing that will change the outcome. The majority of people are not self regulating. Soylent Green anybody?

I've always said humans will breed themselves out of existence. too many humans not enough resources left.