[lutorm]

There's a reason the Hippocratic Oath has "First, do no harm" in it. You don't go around experimenting on human subjects on the off chance that it might be good. The Nazis did that and it's not exactly been upheld as a standard to follow (though that was of course involuntary.) One can argue over the morals involved, but society generally doesn't accept the argument that killing individual people is justified by some uncertain potential to save others (except maybe when it comes to national security...)

[jazzdev]

society generally doesn't accept the argument that killing individual people is justified by some uncertain potential to save others

Isn't that what the FDA does? If you have fatal disease X you can apply to get into a drug trial. You can be denied (leading to your death). You could be accepted, but placed into the control group and given a placebo (and die).

People may die during the drug trial phase for the greater good of society learning if the drug is safe and/or effective. Maybe that's a good trade-off and maybe it's not, but we are trading lives for something we value more... knowledge.

I'm in favor of abolishing the FDA. But the biggest downside is that it might be impossible to determine if drugs were effective because very few sick people would volunteer for a drug trial where they might get put in the control group (and not get the drug).

[yummyfajitas]

Dantheman isn't advocating killing people. He is advocating allowing people to to voluntarily experiment on themselves.

Kind of like what the Nazis did, except without the violence.