Everything's Booming, Almost

Mankind is going through a chain of booms. We've experienced the population boom, economies boom on and off, and most influentially the great technology boom. Additionally, there's been a data boom, a communication boom, and it can even be ventured to say we're beginning an ethics boom. What's missing?

Let's talk about a few things mentioned above. Population and economy are discussed extensively enough in other sources. What is this technology boom though? It's not as clearly defined, nor are it's ramifications. We know computers were invented only a handful of decades ago, and they've evolved at an exponential rate since then. What does this mean for us? Well, according to some sociologists, cultures merge from the technology of their peoples. This seems accurate enough, it's observable today, especially in the first world, but our technology has also lead to a globalized economy as companies spread across multiple nations, countries and their people communicate over the internet, Google creates a map of the entire planet. This leads to impacts on third world countries, and their cultures have been influenced slightly. Throughout the connected world, people are demanding more things, things like more jobs, more food, more connectivity, more rights, things that we didn't need to emphasize on as much before our population boomed. How do limited resources and large numbers of people influence culture? Let's just ask al-Shabab.

What's this data boom? Again, let's ask Google. As most savvy internet users will know, Google watches what we search and displays advertisements related to things we show an interest in. That's fair, it's their search engine, they should be able to monitor it as they please. Just like a server company can monitor information passed through their servers, or a cell phone company can monitor information on their towers, going through their satellites. (If you don't like that, mail a letter, it's entirely confidential, but regardless I promise you every other human being has better things to do than listen to your private phone calls, unless you're a terrorist.) But, NSA conspiracy theorists aside, these things have good impacts. Companies can figure out that if more people are making calls between point a and point b, maybe putting a tower there is a good thing; a crude example. Companies can tell where people buy more products, hence every Wal-Mart in the south has an aisle devoted solely to duct-tape, stores in colder regions sell more jackets, and your favorite foods appear more in stores where enough people buy them more often. Data is knowledge, and people benefit from both.

Back to my question: What's missing?

Well, I want to know where's our healthcare boom? We've seen a rise in healthcare, but it's been very inefficient. Costs remain sky-high while quality is entirely dependent on things like location, availability to resources, morale of hospital employees, how much your doctors like you. And frankly, at the rate our technology is increasing, why do we still have trouble with things like the flu, cancer, age-related illnesses?

The problem is whilst technology, even nano-technology, operates on a very familiar level, the malleable level that the normal laws of physics apply to, where we can shape and mold our technology with our own hands or our own tools; chemistry operates at a molecular level, below the cellular level, and chemistry, in healthcare, is synonymous with medicine. The difficulties are astonishing, the various factors contributing are immeasurable. The chemists that make medicine require huge amount of resources, time, and manpower; which in our society requires money. Thus, healthcare descended to the realm of capitalism, it's a business now, one that exists because people get sick, they offer the economic demand, pharmaceutical companies offer the supply. Hence lies the issue, that when you 'heal' your customers, they won't buy from you any more, the companies crash, and we no longer have an operable healthcare system. This is a conspiracy theory as well, and many people believe that we've cured cancer ten times over, but because companies make more money off treatment than off cure, they buy off any promising research before it can make head-way. I won't touch up on the validity of such theories, but I will say that in a capitalist society, that makes sense. So long as healthcare is privatized, it frankly needs to be that way, for the sake of the continuation of decent healthcare, they need resources, money. It's a shame people die over this, but some folk will justify it with some greater good, call the dead a martyr in the name of continuing "better" private healthcare. Sarcasm intended.

Digression. The point is no-one is to blame here. It's the society we created, and each member is responsible for its past, and its future. Let's bring us back to the aforementioned ethics boom.

We've all read on Facebook or somewhere, someone will make some poorly thought out remark about homosexuality and its general badness, and they'll get reamed by a number of folk who demand equal rights for all, who subsequently make far more logical arguments. As it should be. This is because ethics has evolved into a logical process, unlike the religious or even cultural process it was in the past. It's become a science. Despite the irony of the deification of science, it still holds far more benefit that ethics be a logic-based process instead of a tradition based, and rather stoic, code of conduct. And what realm holds more ethical ramification than healthcare?

I think this is where the current state lies. It's not that we don't have the means to cure every disease, to include aging itself, but that simply the social pressure isn't present, yet. We accept illness because of tradition, "it's always been around therefore it always will be that way!" And people (on a massive scale, brought to you by our population boom, which isn't all that bad) are beginning just recently to realize that's not true. Things change over time when people work together and fix problems. By definition, every problem has a solution, and we can figure it out. So, I offer my prediction:

As the perception of ethics as a science, a logical process, spreads throughout humanity, global pressure on the healthcare system will increase, and the demand for better healthcare will rise, and eventually as these ethics minded people come into power within all levels of society, the system will change for the better. Remember that data boom? Well, it's being applied to healthcare also, and just very recently, vast amounts of data are beginning to pour in. If scientists have the proper ethical, not monetary, incentives, they will find the means to apply this data, and like humans, we will create.

I dearly hope you enjoyed, share if you did, and always, thanks for reading.