If the Winter Olympics inspired you to go bobsledding down an interesting rabbit hole, consider doing a deep dive into ancient man’s theories of health and anatomy. It’s pretty trippy.
Each civilization had its own traditions and beliefs — and absolutely NONE of ‘em got it exactly right.
Perhaps it’s unfair to be critical: Ancient “healthcare providers” like Galen, Imhotep, and Hippocrates were all limited by the technology of their time — as are the physicians of today.
Until microscopes were invented, germ theory was a minority opinion. Like they say, seeing is believing.
Which is why, in a pre-scientific world, healthcare advice was based on philosophical theories about the body. Some came from Holy Books; others came from the Socratic method. It wasn’t backed by rigorous experiments or following the data; it was all philosophical conjecture — their version of “the way things ought to be.”
It’s how we came up with the bat[feces] crazy idea of bloodletting: We reasoned it made sense to get all that “bad blood” out of your system.
Philosophically based healthcare was the First Age of Medicine.
The second age is the one we’re in right now: We no longer follow medical advice based on philosophical theories, but on trial and error. When our doctors tell us to take a certain medicine, they do so because case studies suggest it would be beneficial.
Let’s call it evidence-based healthcare.
No argument; it’s a huge upgrade. Bravo, boys! Testing large groups of people gives us a far better sense of probabilities: If a treatment works 80% of the time and the alternative 5%, let’s do the treatment.
But the trouble is, large testing groups don’t always correlate to your specific healthcare needs. Biodiversity is a very real thing; in ways large and small, your body is unique.
And what works for 80% of the population could kill you.
It’s the fatal flaw of today’s healthcare system — and it’s why doctors never know if anything is going to work. All they can do is look at case studies and extrapolate probabilities: “Yup, I give you a… 30% chance at surviving. But you never know!”
This age is quickly coming to a close. It’ll be over within 10 years.
For some early adaptors, it’s already over.
And instead, they’ve entered the Third Age of Medicine: personalized healthcare.
No longer will we solely rely on the case studies and experiments of large population pools. It’ll all be based on your personalized metrics.
Think of your Apple Watch. Oura Ring. Smart-watch and/or fitness bands. Sleep trackers.
Every minute of every day, your data will be collected.
And folks, if you think it’s weird now, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
(But y’know what? Colonoscopies are plenty weird, too. But we still do ‘em because they save lives.)
And if our smart toilets, smart toothbrushes, smart watches, and smart everything else save lives, we’ll use them, too.
It’ll create new privacy risks, of course. (Insurance companies would love to know our propensity for sickness and disease. The potential for abuse is astronomical.) But the upside makes it worthwhile, because it’ll let you tailor-design YOUR healthcare plan for YOUR body.
That means, you’ll be able to maximize your lifespan — whatever it is.
All these gadgets will probably be equipped with an A.I. agent that’s highly-trained in its category. We’ll have the A.I. equivalent of half a dozen “healthcare providers” monitoring our body at all times.
Already, lives are being saved. An Oura Ring detected one woman’s cancer eight months before doctors did.
And the technology will keep on getting better and better.
If you can afford it, be an early adaptor. It unclear when there’ll be a tipping point — could be next year, could be five years from now — but it’s probably the kind of thing where it’s better to be in the front of the line than the back.
After all, you don’t wanna be the equivalent of the last person still clinging to bloodletting.
One Last Thing: 2026 is a critical year for America First: It began with Mayor Mamdani declaring war on “rugged individualism” and will reach a crescendo with the midterm elections. Nothing less than the fate of the America First movement teeters in the balance.
Never before have the political battlelines been so clearly defined. Win or lose, 2026 will transform our country.
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