That's one of the ironies of our time: Right when we're on the edge of serious improvements in health care, we're also cooking the planet.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the paradox of advancing health care while simultaneously harming the environment.
Kim Stanley Robinson reflects on the ironic situation of modern society where significant strides in health care and medical advancements are being made at a time when human activities are severely damaging the planet. This juxtaposition raises important ethical and environmental concerns about sustainability and the impact of progress on future generations.
In practice
In a discussion about the future of medicine at a conference, this quote could be used to emphasize the need for environmentally friendly health practices.
Economics was like psychology, a pseudoscience trying to hide that fact with intense theoretical hyperelaboration. And gross domestic product was one of those unfortunate measurement concepts, like inches or the British thermal unit, that ought to have been retired long before.
If the amount of money going into the war economy were invested in landscape restoration, we would be in a far more positive position. It may get a little dire before we pull together, but I think when the prosperous nations, and in particular the U.S., realize they're wrecking their own kids' lives, there will be a mass change in value.
Crash programs fail because they are based on theory that, with nine women pregnant, you can get a baby in a month.
The works of Lavoisier and his associates operated upon many of us at that time like the Sun's rising after a night of moonshine: but Chemistry is now betrothed to the Mathematics, and is in consequence grown somewhat shy of her former admirers.
That which is measured improves. That which is measured and reported improves exponentially.
Imagine being able to predict and prevent cancer before it starts. If we gather the world's talent and expertise in a committed, targeted effort, great progress is possible.
Eureka! Eureka!_x000D_ _x000D_ Supposed to have been his cry, jumping naked from his bath and running in the streets, excited by a discovery about water displacement to solve a problem about the purity of a gold crown.
We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldnt want to meet. I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonize whatever planets they can reach.
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