We can never "cure" cancer. We might be able to save most individuals from dying from it some day but cancer is just a mutation that makes a cell's behavior damaging/lethal to the host body. The only way to prevent "bad" mutation (because there is no sure way to discern 'bad' from any other mutation) is to stop mutation all together, and even if there way a way to do this (removal of radiation does not stop transcription errors) stopping mutation is a nice kindly way to ensure the extinction of the species (no chance for future biological adaptation, because there are no mutations). So, as evil and painful as cancer is, it is a symptom of a good thing, biological mutation and variation in our species, and any through and final "cure to all cancer everywhere" will have to stop the cause of cancer, mutation, which we as a society and species should not allow.
Why haven't we cured cancer yet?
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Re: Why haven't we cured cancer yet?
#12The National Cancer Institute's average yearly budget for cancer research is around $4.9 billion. NFL football revenue? $9 billion. Priorities.
Cancer research is a lot quieter and less entertaining than a football game.
Maybe there are some ways to make it more entertaining? http://eterna.cmu.edu/ , google image labelling and other "gamified work" projects come to mind.
Or a slightly more weird way to put it... we make a big show of music auditions where millions of people get super-excited and spend money to vote on a person they will most likely never see again in their lives. How do we get people that excited about science?
Re: Why haven't we cured cancer yet?
#13The National Cancer Institute's average yearly budget for cancer research is around $4.9 billion. NFL football revenue? $9 billion. Priorities.
What's the point of living if you can't have a little fun? Living merely for the sake of living is pointless.
Its odd. I was quite curious to float this opinion in this crowd. It is of course, wildly unpopular among the non-geeks in my "regular" life. I wondered if it would also be so here. Affirmative.
It always seemed to me that we should "take care of our business" first, and then play later. To see these numbers backwards (IMHO) struck me as a childish "play first" attitude. I wouldn't go so far as to say "cancel sports until we get our health problems sorted out" but a shift in priorities would be refreshing.
Football is fun, finally cracking our genome to make disease obsolete (and I think nothing less than 100% of this cures cancer)... now that would be something to cheer about.
Re: Why haven't we cured cancer yet?
#14The National Cancer Institute's average yearly budget for cancer research is around $4.9 billion. NFL football revenue? $9 billion. Priorities.
Random "fact" 1. Random "fact" 2. Priorities.
What I really wanted to say was that its quite likely that society spends more (much more) on sports entertainment than medical research. Perhaps not wrong. Interesting though.
Re: Why haven't we cured cancer yet?
#15We can never "cure" cancer. We might be able to save most individuals from dying from it some day but cancer is just a mutation that makes a cell's behavior damaging/lethal to the host body. The only way to prevent "bad" mutation (because there is no sure way to discern 'bad' from any other mutation) is to stop mutation all together, and even if there way a way to do this (removal of radiation does not stop transcrip…
I disagree that we should not allow such a thing if it existed. I think humans are a bit past the need for biological evolution. Technology can provide us with the ability to adapt to new challenges and environments, and can do so much more quickly.
Re: Why haven't we cured cancer yet?
#16I don't think we can cure cancer until nanotechnology tools can be used in many hospitals. Send some nanorobots to eradicate all cancer cells in the body, and that's it. But we're probably at least 20-30 years away from that.
Re: Why haven't we cured cancer yet?
#17I have the answer. It's a simple one word answer. GREED. But seriously It's the money that keeps us from curing cancer, or lack thereof. Nothing else. As human beings we really need to decide what's more important....Wealth or our survival and wellbeing. We're too smart as a society to let things like lack of money keep us from curing disease and exploring other planets.
It's not lack of money, it's lack of what money represents, which is goods, services, and in general labor. If the US wanted to spend $100 trillion on cancer cures it could, but the moment it printed all that money, the purchasing power of it would decline to the point that they wouldn't actually have enough money to cure cancer.
Consider a single cancer researcher. They need to eat. They need machines that sequence genes that use techniques developed by other researchers, designed by engineers, built by people in factories. All of those people need to eat. The raw materials are mined out of the ground in work that is environmentally damaging, hard work, and often dangerous work. It is not possible to snap your fingers and have more work immediately happen.
There have been exceptions to the above, but it has been temporary in export economies with exportable natural resources attainable at a below-market level (e.g. OPEC, Soviet Union).
You can't just say "Is it really just money that keeps us from doing X?" since money isn't the issue, it's that we don't have enough of the value that backs the currency.
Re: Why haven't we cured cancer yet?
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's the point of living if you can't have a little fun? Living merely for the sake of living is pointless.
Its odd. I was quite curious to float this opinion in this crowd. It is of course, wildly unpopular among the non-geeks in my "regular" life. I wondered if it would also be so here. Affirmative. It always seemed to me that we should "take care of our business" first, and then play later. To see these numbers backwards (IMHO) struck me as a childish "play first " attitude. I wouldn't go so far as to say "cancel sports…
> It always seemed to me that we should "take care of our business" first, and then play later.
This sentiment only works when the "business" is a low hanging fruit. In other words, very doable with reasonable effort with results in the short-term.
Anything else, and you hunker down for the long haul. And that means plenty of playing in the interim. For "business" that can take a lifetime or several lifetimes, no, you should definitely make sure you play and play vigorously.
Nobody should be asked to sacrifice the quality of their life for the sake of hypothetical benefits for future generations.
Re: Why haven't we cured cancer yet?
#19We can never "cure" cancer. We might be able to save most individuals from dying from it some day but cancer is just a mutation that makes a cell's behavior damaging/lethal to the host body. The only way to prevent "bad" mutation (because there is no sure way to discern 'bad' from any other mutation) is to stop mutation all together, and even if there way a way to do this (removal of radiation does not stop transcrip…
I disagree that we should not allow such a thing if it existed. I think humans are a bit past the need for biological evolution. Technology can provide us with the ability to adapt to new challenges and environments, and can do so much more quickly.
Also, plenty of biological evolution can happen in the absence of mutation.
Re: Why haven't we cured cancer yet?
#20The National Cancer Institute's average yearly budget for cancer research is around $4.9 billion. NFL football revenue? $9 billion. Priorities.
A minority of NFL revenues come from ticket sales & merchandising combined. Much of it comes from advertising. If you're an effective channel for mass attention, it stands to reason that you're going to be poised to capture huge amounts of money, simply because there's huge amounts of commerce happening.
The NFL's revenue is not really a reflection on our priorities. A better comparison would be to other discretionary expenditures in the federal government.
Strong agree that we underspend on this problem.