Heymann Bredt writes:

Unfortunately for the future of modern medicine, the idea--that people who advocate against the prerequisites to the continued existence of medicine (e.g. anti-stem cellers, PETA activists, creationists) should be deprived the contraindications of their philosophies--is against the Hippocratic oath.

And admittedly, this doctor in training is embarrassed about his temptation to deprive medical care to those who unknowingly campaign against it. It's just that modern medicine is now a philosophy under attack, and it's destined by lose--meaning quite literally that it will become a "thing of the past" if dollar-pursuit continues to dominate the wonderful traditions of freedom of press and speech (which it inevitably will).

In fact, all [help the weak even if they are not your self-image] philosophies are under attack, and all will necessarily lose the war in time because such thought systems cannot compete with force, fear and greed.

In short, the Enlightenment is most likely ending, but enlightenments come and go. The last hope for this one is that scientific progress in the programming of social behaviors will enable us (me) to eradicate conviction from the population-at-large.

The downside of this is that there will be no such thing as love, but religion, intolerance, and violence will be pre-empted.

I could go either way--love is a large price to pay--it's a reason to live. On the flip side, there's the temptation of being so comfortable that there's no reason to wonder 'why live' and I like the Lennonesque harmony in that. We'll have to see how this all unfolds.

I'm game either way.