Monday Musings...

--The GOOD news is that MY zip code isn't the one in Ft. Wayne with the highest rate of lung cancer deaths.

The BAD news is that our zip code is #3!

I guess we have to try harder?

Whenever I hear stats about cancer, I can't help but think of all the "other" factors that usually go ignored, because everyone seems to focus MAINLY on the smoking aspect. Both my wife and I share the fact that family members have had cancer, which makes us prime candidates as well, regardless of whether we never even picked up a cigarette. Now while I will admit that smoking is BAD for you (health wise as well as financially...at least THESE days anyway), there are a plethora of things that "add" to the risk of getting this disease. There is the GENETIC factor, as in having some screwed up gene in your double helix that decides to turn itself on at a specific time in your life, causing the onset of cancer.

Maybe you'll get lucky and it won't even manifest itself, as one of your other parents don't have that mutation.

Maybe not.

Then there are environmental aspects such as exposure to toxic substances (even on a job). There is also radon gas, sunlight, red meat...the list is seemingly endless. Every week we read about something else we shouldn't eat or drink. We can't all go around like the boy in the bubble either. Time (as Steve Miller once wrote) keeps slipping into the future. We ARE going to come in contact with SOMETHING that's not good for us...sooner or later.

Personally, I avoid TWINKIES like the plague...never trusted something that can be years old and seemingly never get stale...LOL!

Yet all of these (and more) contribute to your risk in some manner, and the best possible way to combat it would be at the GENETIC level; turn off that gene that causes cell mutation...period. We can perform surgery, irradiate ourselves, and dose our bodies with chemotherapy until the cows come home, turning us into persons who look like we spent a summer in Dachau prison during WW2, but it's not really getting at the root cause. We're talking cellular changes here, and nothing short of genetic manipulation can be the definitive cure for cancer.

Then we can all get back to having that cigar after a nice dinner, or even dare to have that Porterhouse steak we've been drooling over.

--Something else that caught my eye was the fact that Japan leads the world in robot technology, and other than being creeped out by the possibility of a world like that depicted in the recent movie, I ROBOT, I can't help but think of a world where machines slowly scrape away at our own humanity.

Whether it's something as "innocuous" as Michael Crichton's THE TERMINAL MAN, or something as blatant as the TERMINATOR series, it all begs a universal question: Are machines here to help us, and if they are, how far will THEY go in that "help"?

Can we grow as a species when machinations are "minding the store" in our stead?

Japan is finding itself in a most unusual position. It has a growing senior population (much like we have here in America), and your women there are declining to have children, which means their population is dwindling at a rate unsustainable by it's caregivers. That means that the possibility of robotic "assistance" could be on the horizon.

The fact that Japan's workforce is getting smaller (by 10% within 20 years) would make it unable to remain the world's #2 economic leader. Now I would be remiss to not say that Japan ALSO has one of the STRICTEST immigration policies on the globe, and that itself is causing concern, because they DO NOT rely on "foreign" labor to supplement their workforce. They still retain that (however small) air of isolationism, unlike in America, where we have embraced our history of immigrants. Hell, this nation was FOUNDED BY IMMIGRANTS! America was BUILT by immigrants, and PROSPERED thanks to immigrants.

Today, however, we find ourselves questioning the burden all the ILLEGAL immigrants are causing to our own infrastructure. We're seeking that minuscule portion of isolationism we really NEED to maintain the systems we already have in place to sustain those here legally. And that has become the hot topic for this millennium. Still, would Japan prosper by allowing an influx of immigrants onto it's shores?

Could they bolster their care giving system for their growing population of elderly by embracing foreign labor?

Japan maintains they refrain from acceptance of such labor due to the broad support from it's people, which blames immigration for crime, impolite behavior, and untidiness.

Well that explains a lot of OUR problems HERE, doesn't it?

Japan's leaders don't see any political "downside" to using robotic laborers. And they're right in that assessment...that is UNTIL some robot somewhere becomes self-aware...and dares to question something. Or some machine decides that what we thought was in OUR best interest really isn't...and changes the "rules" all in the name of "human preservation". And then all of a sudden we're staring at a very large SLOPE...and it has gotten a lot more slippery than one could imagine.

It can happen....question is...will it?