Via Futurepundit:
The brain injection part isn’t exactly appealing. But surely some appetite-cutting compounds will be able to travel via the blood. After all, appetite is influenced by the hormone ghrelin (secreted epsilon cells of the pancreas and P/D1 cells of the stomach) and leptin (secreted by adipose tissues). So the blood does contain compounds that make it into the brain.
While we are living in an era with a high prevalence of obesity we are nearing the end of that era. 20 years from now I expect obesity to be rare in developed countries as drugs that suppress appetite hit the market.
So, if they can get around the “brain injection” part, sounds great. Right?
Not to me.
Let’s start with the fact that it is not our appetites, per se, that make us obese. Throughout history, humans with our appetites have not been, for the most part, obese.
It is a combination of our appetites with a body inherited by evolution to resist losing weight in times of scarcity, and plentiful high-glycemic carbohydrates unavailable to our pre-agricultural ancestors, and a lack of need to go running miles a day with a heavy load to bring home food. We are obese because food that is bad for us is cheap, we don’t exercise much any more because we have figured out how to do a living at a desk, and our bodies haven’t caught up.
But you know what?
I like my appetites. I think that appetites are one of the things that make us human. I like digging into a juicy filet mignon, a succulent lobster dipped in butter, an artichoke. I love the taste (and smell) of fresh bread coming out of the oven.
And you know what else? I really like engaging various of my bodily parts with those of another person of the opposite sex, even though it makes no sense, from an intellectual standpoint. I even like thinking about it, or looking at pictures of other people doing it (though not anywhere near as much as actually doing it). That’s an appetite, too. And one that decreases with age, but I haven’t noticed that it’s made me (or I imagine many others) any happier. And (at least from the literature) the age-related decrease seems to be increased in females, which doesn’t in any way enhance the happiness of many males for whom the decrease has been less, particularly when they are the only females available, sans adultery. That seems like a more worthy problem to attack than “reducing appetite.”
Yes, I know that some transhumanists (like Hans Moravec) want to be a robot. This has been the platonic ideal going back at least to…well…Plato. You know, the body distracts us from the higher values of the intellect…bla, bla, bla.
But does the intellect really make life worth living? The platonists, the transhumanists, would like to persuade us that it does, that properly implemented, the pleasures of the intellect will vastly exceed the base carnal pleasures of this rotting form.
Well, maybe. But even though I’m from Michigan, my darling Patricia is from Missouri. Show us.
Then, maybe.
But mere showing won’t be enough of course. We’d have to have a personal demonstration, in which thinking about…whatever…beats an orgasm, or even biting into a delicious meal.
Maybe suppressing appetites is the future, but I hope not, at least for the immediate future. I’d like to think that there are better redesigns of the body to prevent obesity. Because I like my appetite for food, and my appetite for other things, and if this is where technology is taking us, sign me…not up.
Of course, with the current administration, which clearly wants to put the government in charge of our health care, and which will be looking for ways to reduce the cost of such, and obesity being viewed as one of the primary causes of health-care costs, don’t expect that it will merely pay for appetite suppressants, brain injected or otherwise.
Expect them to be compulsory.