[quote=Arraya]Interestingly major health gains for the human race were made from simple things like sanitation measures and understanding of nutrition. “Mircle” drugs and the medicalization in recent decades of so many of life’s vicissitudes—birth and death, for example—frequently cause more harm than good and rendered many people in effect lifelong patients. Modern medicine has not positively impacted modern life in aggregate.

The parabolic trajectory of unhealthy people over the past few decades props up the medical behemoth. With most of the unhealthyness caused by modern society..

Monetary success has less and less a corolation with really adding something beneficial to society as time goes on. We seem to profit off of problems generated by the same system. You might say, patterns of unhealthy behavior are needed for continuance.[/quote]
I agree with this. But I bet rare would be the person who, before receiving an angioplasty, would accuse their heart surgeon of being an unproductive member of the reviled 1%.

Taking the bigger picture, what is a productive profession? Are professional athletes or entertainers productive? I think some folks’ answer to that question might depend on whether they were a consumer of that particular form of entertainment. Is an airline pilot “productive”? What about a lawyer? They might seem useless – until you need one.