On Disease 

Well I think that is largely the case, because of a lack of education. Like did you know that all primates when put in a social system (like a state or country) with high income-inequality, experience higher levels of chronic stress, which cause the hunger for refined carbs to go up, which cause obesity? This is quite well documented across several scientific disciplines. And this is partly why the US has a obesity epidemic, but Japan doesn't. Most people don't know about this mechanism though, and its much easier to assume that people are overweight, because they lack character or intelligence, and give in to a crap lifestyle (Which is ALSO a part of the problem).

It's immoral to unfairly distribute health care. Your level of suffering is, at some point, someone else's moral choice.

This is true of work as well. What type of work you do and how much you do is wrapped up in morality but does not give room for things like disability, mental health, non-paying work (especially care work), or the pursuit of self-actualisation and joy. And we’re all stressed out about it.

I think attributing *anything* to morality is a bit daft. Is most violence and crime really caused by "bad people" or by trauma, desperation, and inadequate social systems that perpetuate both? "Badness" has about as much explanatory power as "demon possession".

Do people actually do that? I have never heard of someone being called a bad person because they get cancer.

Lol

But what about "more light than heat"?

I would like "I'm Quite Earnest"

@@sexyscientist +++

It would also be a great first line.

Its not really absent from history though. Everyone knows FDR was wheelchair bound in his youth.

I've always found it interesting that a lot of the symptoms of illness are from ourselves. Fever and coughing are your body trying to kill and get rid of bad things. Joint pain is the result of having a bunch of white blood cells accumulating in places.

It's not true of illnesses in general. He's talking about "itis"es. Diseases are often named after the causative organism (eg cholera, tuberculosis, histoplasmosis). They're often named after a particularly prominent/unique sign or symptom (eg whooping cough, smallpox, yellow fever). Cancers are usually named by the cell type of origin or the microscopic findings, but colloquially people often just say "[location of tumor] cancer". Cancers often cause a lot of inflammation, but it's not referred to as an "itis". Then there are all those diseases named after people. "itis" is the suffix because the symptoms (pain, swelling, redness) come from the inflammatory response and reducing the inflammatory response reduces the symptoms, even if the area is teeming with bacteria. Also, stuff like orbital cellulitis can be caused by microbes other than staph. aureus. It can be caused by microbes other than bacteria. But regardless of the causative organism, the symptoms will pretty much be the same and can be temporarily relieved by reducing the inflammatory response. Makes sense to name it with "itis". It's a useful catch all term, because often there are no known causative microbes for an "itis". Osteoarthritis, for example, can have pain, swelling, and redness, but is not an infection. Eosinophilic esophagitis is another example. Doesn't contradict his point about social determinants of health, but I couldn't help but be nitpicky.

Like Tom said, i think its partly just because its easier to diagnose symptoms than causes and name diseases through that. Diseases with varied symptoms can be hard to link and symptoms with many causes can be hard to separate but we start with the symptoms - you go to the doctor for chest pain or eye swelling, etc rather than starting with what pathogen caused it

This is why writers should not be commenting on medical nomenclature. We name it after the bodies response because the body response is what kills you.

@@jhonklan3794 I actually love the idea of someone like John Green in all his talent trying to make sense of something that might be outside of his specialty. It highlights where communication breaks down and the point he comes to after discussing the nomenclature is a good point. It doesn't matter how he comes to it. We as a society do see illness as a moral failure and a personal responsibility and that is a problem.

I was recently diagnosed and one of the things I bought a book for, it's one of the few that explain it as a whole. But it's sssoooo painfully medical terminology dense. It look forever to read because I looked up EVERYTHING. But it's worth it

I too have a chronic disease, Lyme Disease. For the past 12 years it has been my life. I can say that I understand your suffering. My extended family recently went to Walt Disney World, in August and I just could not go. Disney in August? Actually I don’t know how a healthy person can stand the heat. But, me there was no way. When you are sick you miss out, it is just a fact of life. I am here for you. There is much that I have learned in the 12 years I have been sick. Most of all it has been to be kind to people because you never know what they are dealing with. I hope your day and this upcoming weekend is good to you. Much love to you!❤️

And on the other side, compare people with cancer to soldiers like they have a choice and should be praised for still being alive, or "disability porn" where people for accomplishing great or small tasks are held up as "you should do this too because this person with no legs did this" when 1. Not everyone with disabilities can be an athlete, that does not mean they are less deserving of respect and attention, 2. There's always an under (or overt) tone of "if I were you I'd just give up"... Like illness is a choice and people don't find ways to cope and live fulfilling lives with the hand they're dealt.

I'm so sorry for your difficult experiences. You matter, even when society doesn't treat you as such. Thanks for sharing.

I agree, that one's gonna stay with me for a while.

Must watch: "Made out of Meat"

@@casualevils Oh this is excellent

Can someone put this into a cross stitch pattern for me? Maybe over a picture of a brain?

Same here, that was amazing

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The Try Guys channel recently published a video specifically on this very problem. Zach talked about his own disability and interviewed several disabled rights activists about how the pandemic has impacted them and how the world has largely ignored the profound impact on disabled people. I hope maybe it could at least help you feel less alone.

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How do you cook a lemon?

Thanks for sharing! I got really excited to read this until your last sentence…but maybe someday!

Do we know the agent/publisher for that author? Because if enough of us ask, they'll think there's a market.

I think that instinct to blame the illness on the ill can be seen as a sort of self-preservation and reassurance. If the illness is the fault of the person who has it, then it’s something that can be avoided. That’s a lot easier to accept than coming to terms with the fact that you or your loved ones could get sick or die because of factors outside your control. Not saying it’s right, but I find it helpful to think about when I wonder why people might respond that way.

@@paigeryan476 there's also a very human desire for life to make sense, with a causal narrative. Like "if a person has condition X, it's because they did (or didn't do) action Y". When faced with diseases that don't make logical sense, we still try to find a cause, with the easiest one being that the illness is somehow the fault of the sick person.

Yeah cause you know it's so fun having a body that you literally have no control over no matter what you do. It's totally entirely a choice yeah (this is sarcasm, I'm super autoimmune issued up)

​@@leslieelizabeth3024 This is how I also feel about my physical responses to whatever is going on in my body .... (after 30 years of not really being diagnosed satisfactorily). I have settled on responding that "I don't know, I just live here." It is an extremely lonely existence when so many things that regular people do without thinking can potentially cause me extreme pain or dysfunction to the point where I could be laid up for hours, days or weeks. And it is impossible to explain to almost everyone I know. The only people who get it are my youngest child and two other people who once were stuck in cars with me when I could not stop vomiting due to the pain I was experiencing. I know a lot more than three people - none of the others really get it. Not only do we need to deal with disease, illness, or dysfunction, but we also have to constantly justify these things. It's exhausting.

@@nanszoo3092 I'm also a pain vomiter, it's so fun. It's really hard to explain it (the health issue symptoms) some times, and some people don't want to try to understand either. So then they get angry? What do they have to be angry about lol we're the ones that should be angry, but we just have to roll with it. I've got a couple close friends that don't fully get it, but they don't treat me differently or look down on when I'm not physically able to do something. But it's hard when family doesn't. It's very isolating in your own home sometimes. I think I've just hit some kinda bitter reluctance stage in my acceptance. I love cooking and food, but I just had to cut out and stop eating major parts of my regular diet. Overwhelming isn't even a word for it anymore lol

Disease is also closely associated with death (bc of course it is), and people have feared death for as long as there's been people. So we just avoid talking about either, unfortunately.

I don't know about you but I don't imagine people feel a sense of control in war.

@@JustinAlexanderBell Never mind in love.

Yeah. People play video games about war and they actively pursue love, no matter how treacherous it can be. But disease is different. No one wants to play cancer on their xbox and no one goes out looking for AIDS. These are things people don't even like to think about and just pray they never have to.

@@asherujudo7383 That’s actually worth breaking down though, by all accounts war should be on par with disease in terms of how much death it causes, and how little choice you actually have. War should make us feel helpless in the face of likely death. And yet, society glorifies militaristic conquest and stamina, while disease is unexplored. Why is that? I’d say it’s because society has figured out that war is a collective effort; we win or lose together. We all intuitively understand that, and the way we treat war reflects that. War stories maintain the social fabric necessary for collective defense. But society has not yet learned this about disease and illness. We don’t intuitively understand that we win or lose against illnesses together, and we don’t have disease stories to maintain a social fabric to collectively fight disease.

I think it isn't ableism or any explicit attempt to discriminate disabled people, it's just people being ignorant and not knowing better. Racism and sexism were the norm in the past, and until the 18th century it was generally accepted by all members of societies around the world.

@@diogoe.s.t.2293 Ignorant ableism (racism, sexism, etc.) is still ableism. I would argue more people have been hurt by ignorance than malice. The malice is more obvious and absolutely needs to be rooted out-but generally, the harm comes when malice creates the system and ignorance perpetuates it.

yeah, i agree. we can't talk about our response to disease without considering how systemic ableism affects our views on disease.

John couldn't make a video about disease interesting, he had to make a video in which character Dizzyz was unfairly treated by the system and misunderstood with appeals to emotion. Disease is boring, although extremely important.

I disagree on both fronts I think. In regards to point 1, mortality is hardly shied away from in media (though American media has a tendency to treat it with kids' gloves compared to the rest of the world). In regards to point 2, disability is borderline-fetishized by media (American in particular, again). Disease is rarely covered, but mental health and physical disability as forms of tribulation are so commonplace as to be banal. Try any of the TV Tropes pages on disability (special mention to "Inspirationally Disabled"), and I think you'll agree that ableism is a selling point for media, not something to avoid. (Doing disability WELL is an entirely different matter.) Generally, I think the lack of coverage of disease is simple: it's boring. Telling a story about disease isn't a story that can have a happy ending; it can merely have a neutral ending or bad one. Sure, sure, you can end up better off than before you had a disease due to serendipity, but disease itself almost always leaves you worse off than before. That's both predictable and nihilistic. Combine that with its near-ubiquity and general lack of fairness when it comes to selecting targets, and, honestly, can you blame anyone for not wanting to consume media based on it? Disease, by its very nature, will always be a struggle that cannot be overcome, merely mitigated, and that's a reality that doesn't sell well.

Thanks for the recommendation 😀 I'm going to the library 🙂

Clearly, John is still processing this news.

I think it was like 6 years ago when I truly saw how common it was for humans to be like crabs in a boiling pot. It was four years ago when I learned whole rooms of people could vote for something none of them wanted, because everyone just assumed everyone else but them wanted the thing.

Very interesting and as someone who has been through acute ilnesses and continues to suffer from chronic ones, I totally agree. I went to catholic school as a child and I remember never really buying that going through cancer from 3 to 5 - and being ostracized by other kids because of it - was part of a "good and flawless divine plan". In hindsight, this idea is probably an example how many people reject the cold nature of reality. As Camus said about religion and other leaps of faith that deny the unfeeling and unintelligible universe, it's a philosophical suicide.

Hello, I'm a recently diagnosed person. I get that. Like sorry I didn't know this wasn't "normal". It took me reading books on what I have to realize how much wasn't normal? It's wild

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FOR REAL - I have Eosinophilic Esophagitis which caused me to frequently choke on food growing up. I assumed everyone choked that much bc no one seemed to pay it any mind & it was the only experience I had. I am very lucky that my doctor I started to see 7 years ago took me very seriously when I happened to mention the choking in passing.

I'm in my 30's and have bad knee arthritis. Finally found out my knees are misaligned and my legs are different lengths. About to have surgery to fix the alignment. I bought some height adjusted shoes. I can't even explain the feeling of putting those shoes on for the first time. I went around telling everyone that I didn't know you aren't supposed to bounce when you walk, and if you shift your weight from one foot to the other while standing, both feet stay on the ground. I'm looking forward to surgery so much. I never knew things were wrong because that's all I knew. I've been thinking back, trying to figure out what were the first signs something was wrong. Now I realize, things in high school were signs. If I only knew that wasn't right and we did something about it then, I wouldn't have this bad arthritis. But how could I have known?

You are complicit but only (1/250,000)% complicit.

I watched him sign the Anthropocene Reviewed and it’s like, he used up some of his joint bends on us, and he used up some of his time on us, and he knew neither was infinite. So that was a tiny gift to each of us who got the signatures in our books. And of course in aggregate it cost him a lot but he knew time and the bends of his joint were finite. So we need to just appreciate that gift, because the thing that makes giving worthwhile is the knowledge that the recipient will enjoy it. So if we just sit here feeling guilty, we aren’t even holding up our side of the deal.

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Sending love and support!

I also spent the summer writing a history of tuberculosis on Ohio State’s campus, as a way to look at how non-covid diseases have impacted academic life in the past. Anyway, I love hearing other people get excited about this stuff

I don't suppose that list is viewable somewhere? Maybe on Goodreads? Would love to check out your recs.

Get well soon!! :)

I'm so sorry you went through that.

aw damn your teacher made you apologise/ repeatedly made you do exercises that made you faint? what a bad teacher...

"...our bodies are marvelous and know the world intimately in a way that my mind or eyes will never be able to really see or sense" is a sentence that I will be turning over in my meat brain for quite a while.

@@vanessalory623 I'm not sure I can describe how much your response meant to me. Thank you! :)))

I believe sneezing is a reflex, much like your kick reflex when you tap below your kneecap. That being the case, it is just a side effect of having a body, and it's also involuntary (most of the time at least).

I think the blue pill suppresses symptoms but you can't operate heavy machinery

@@nate.draws.things No, sneezing is not normal. I never sneeze

Due to the pandemic and having to wear a mask I've mastered the ability to will myself not to sneeze (so that I don't get snot in the mask I then have to wear) but am now worried this practice is in some way bad for me, you know, just to give voice to a different sneeze related anxiety.

Well, a licensed professional medical doctor said it's never normal.

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So seasonal allergies could be dubbed as "the itides of March."

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@@vigilantcosmicpenguin8721 this is my favorite thing on the internet today, thank you for it.

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It's not particularly deep. We treat symptoms when the causes are unnecessary or impossible to treat. The former involves cold medicine, like you mentioned. When you have a cold, your immune reaction usually causes more problems for you than the infection itself does. Your immune system will handle the infection. The latter includes conditions we don't have the technology to cure, only to treat and manage. When it's necessary and possible to treat causes, we do so all the time. Some of the greatest inventions in medical history are antibiotics and vaccines, both of which treat causes.

@@jacobhuang6590 that is very true. What I wanted to try to articulate but didn't think I could eloquently enough was that we also do this outside of medicine. One example is when I was working as a teacher the district I was in realized kids were doing poorly at the writing portions of standardized tests. Rather than looking for the cause of it having just been COVID and all of their veteran teachers leaving in mass partially because so many initiatives were put on them they didn't really have time to do the job they were hired for, admin just tried to add a new initiative to treat the symptom. Or like donating a bunch of money to a country that just had a massive brutal disaster to help but not acknowledging that poor health care of lack of access to clean water has been just as deadly. I don't more if that actually makes any sense, but it was more where my mind was trying to go

OH MY GOSH THIS IS ME. Ahhhh thank you for putting this feeling in words.

So many mental ‘disorders’ are named badly. Think about ADHD - ‘Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder’. Ummm there is certainly no deficit in the attention I can sustain when hyper focusing on one thing for 10 hours. Not to mention the fact that ADHD is SO MUCH more than the way my attention span is. Even the word ‘disorder’ tells us we’re wrong or broken when we’re just differently abled.

I loved that book! It gave a human touch to a very scientific story. It gave me some comfort to read (and some anxieties) during the beginning of the pandemic

I get you !! I have things, it sucks, but I don't fully understand why after so long some people close to me are still ?uncomfortable? I'm still me ? That's not going to change? Just what I eat, and some daily routines, that's all. The same people are also getting grumpy because they won't ask questions and won't even ask if it's okay to ask questions ? How is asking a question so offensive to the person asking it ?

personally everytime i remember it, it also brings a lot of apathy (i think thats the word, trying to say i simply dont care) about it because it changes absolutely nothing about how we live our lives. we were and always a brain living in a hunk of meat with bones and organs and shit and that changes nothing from how we talk to work to doing the good or bad in the world. i also think like this when i took an anatomy class and had a really big deep dive every unit on each organ. it changes nothing but deepens our knowledge on how the world works. sorry if i sound aggressive or uncaring, genuinely trying to help u think differently so u dont get an existential crisis. this sorta mindset helps me avoid alot of existential crisises.

@@saltypineapple8371 Well, it certainly helped me. Thank you so much.

@@rezzy8590 you're welcome :D glad i can help

It's an interesting thing to think about. How a bunch of cells in a clump, working by fairly simple rules, have adapted and evolved to become conscious and sentient. It then confuses me when people say that it is impossible to create a sentient AI or that it wouldn't really be intelligent. Like, does the fact it isn't a meat bag mean it can't be alive? That would be really surprising. I think there are many different ways to get the same overall effect of consciousness. In a system this complex the individual components may not matter too much, whether by cells and proteins (meat), digital or analog circuits, computer simulated neurons, or something else. I think it's possible for any of these to be considered alive, and we just happened to be made of meat.

I hope you have a speedy recovery!

@@noram1725 thank you!!

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