The Ultimate Conflict of Interests
Disclaimer: I was about to write a long, thought provoking essay, complete with links, sources, and philosophical pontification, on this subject. Then, coincidentally, I spent some time going over old entries from college, and arrived at the following conclusions: 1. My livejournal is already full to the brim with bullshit theories, and 2. I'm boring. Therefore, I decided to make my approach to the topic a more flippant one, in hopes that it will encourage people to read it and that if I happen review it someday, it won't make me groan in disgust at my own pedantry. I will not, however, forswear the use of words like "flippant" and "pedantry," or even for that matter, "forswear."
Now that's all out of the way, here's what I've been thinking about:
I consider myself to be an environmentalist with conservative views. Or perhaps I should say I'm a conservationist, environmentally speaking. Some advocate methods of improving efficiency in order to sustain an expanding populace and economy without hurting the environment. I would rather see improved efficiency sustaining a gradually diminishing population, economy, and so on. I am anti-growth, in a way. It's not that I hate people, it's just that I think we'll all be better off in a population that's more like what we had one or two hundred years ago.
The problem is, I'm supposed to be going into a health-oriented career (specifically acupuncture, for those of you who haven't been paying attention) and one side effect of medicine is longer life-spans and improved fertility, both of which lead to increasing population. This could be true of most health-care professions, but to top it off, acupuncture is used most commonly in america for 1. fertility issues, and 2. symptoms of what you might call the "20th century syndrome." Stress, pain, headaches, irritability, and a bunch of other things that stem from a rat race that's out of control. If you seek to fix the problem at the source, you need to change not only the economy, but the culture that it grew out of.
So here is my conflict of interests: in essence, I will be obligated to help my future patients in ways which are ultimately detrimental to the world, and thus indirectly to humans, and thus indirectly, to my patients. I must someday swear to "first, do no harm." But with the problems we're currently facing on a global level, how can I do anything to benefit one person without doing harm to others?
Now that's all out of the way, here's what I've been thinking about:
I consider myself to be an environmentalist with conservative views. Or perhaps I should say I'm a conservationist, environmentally speaking. Some advocate methods of improving efficiency in order to sustain an expanding populace and economy without hurting the environment. I would rather see improved efficiency sustaining a gradually diminishing population, economy, and so on. I am anti-growth, in a way. It's not that I hate people, it's just that I think we'll all be better off in a population that's more like what we had one or two hundred years ago.
The problem is, I'm supposed to be going into a health-oriented career (specifically acupuncture, for those of you who haven't been paying attention) and one side effect of medicine is longer life-spans and improved fertility, both of which lead to increasing population. This could be true of most health-care professions, but to top it off, acupuncture is used most commonly in america for 1. fertility issues, and 2. symptoms of what you might call the "20th century syndrome." Stress, pain, headaches, irritability, and a bunch of other things that stem from a rat race that's out of control. If you seek to fix the problem at the source, you need to change not only the economy, but the culture that it grew out of.
So here is my conflict of interests: in essence, I will be obligated to help my future patients in ways which are ultimately detrimental to the world, and thus indirectly to humans, and thus indirectly, to my patients. I must someday swear to "first, do no harm." But with the problems we're currently facing on a global level, how can I do anything to benefit one person without doing harm to others?