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Aids, Cancer, Malaria, Darfur, Earthquake in Sichuan, Tsunami, Pandas, Eagles, Dolphins, Whales, Cats & Dogs, Zimbabwe. Don't be so quick to trivialize cancer

by cellis 18y ago

Aids, Cancer, Malaria, Darfur, Earthquake in Sichuan, Tsunami, Pandas, Eagles, Dolphins, Whales, Cats & Dogs, Zimbabwe. Don't be so quick to trivialize cancer and aids. I assure you: if you ever have to see someone close to you suffer and ultimately die of one of those nasty diseases, the problem of getting a marriage license for gay people will pale in comparison. Sometimes the media serves a good purpose. Not all the time, but sometimes. I personally think that cancer and aids, darfur (last i checked something like 400,000 people, mostly innocent, were massacred), are much weightier issues, and therefore deserve the bulk of media attention. This is not to discredit the honorable work of people working on relatively small societal problems such as gay marriage, but in most of the above problems, the core argument is that lives are being lost. Think about that.

maxklein 18y ago
Darfur is utter nonsense. Remember Sierra Leone? Liberia? I saw the videos coming out of those countries, and yes, that place was a war - a REAL war. Remember the Hutu Tutsi thing? Another real massacre. There are pictures all over the net. But Darfur is just wierd. In this age of Cameras, Camera People, Live streaming, how come 400,000 people have died, and there are no videos of actual combat? Darfur is the strangest "war" I've ever heard of - it seems to be a theoretical war. I've never met the people running from there, I've never seen the videos of the actual war, I've never seen real photographic evidence of any massacres. People want to constantly hear about wars in Africa. But that age has suddenly ended. All the wars in Africa have ended, what's just left is just local clashes and conflicts between ethnic groups, and various organisations who have a vested interest in there being conflicts in Africa push up these topics. Do some real research, you'll see how wierd the Darfur war comes across compared to Sierra Leone or Liberia. Also, research the role of China in the region. Cancer sucks, but cancer has been there since the beginning of time. People get it, people die. The only reason so much focus is given on it is that it is the one disease that being rich has no effect on. So the rich people have vested interest in getting rid of cancer before other diseases like Malaria. Aids is of course a problem, but seriously, remember 10 years ago? 1998? The news about Aids was the same panic as right now. But the thing is this - for an exponentially growing disease, with drugs that are ensuring that the people infected stay alive longer, should it not have been more devastating than it turned out? The Aids projection seem to be staying at roughly the same number. I'm not saying it's not there, I'm just saying that it's not an explosive epidemic.
- cellis 18y ago
  In this age of Cameras, Camera People, Live streaming, how come 400,000 people have died, and there are no videos of actual combat? Perhaps if you did more research you would actually find that its kind of hard to get videos of actual combat. Even if you could get said footage,how easy do you think it is to publish stuff like this when there is a suppressive government? Just because you can't see it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. And i'm not arguing about whether or not these are problems. I'm saying that they are bigger problems than the one posted.
  - maxklein 18y ago
    Then how come there is so much footage of Liberia and Sierra Leone? And Sudan is not a supressive government, it's a failed state where the central government is weak and cannot control the country.
    - lemonysnicket 18y ago
      Mark, Have you heard of the phrase, stop while you're ahead. I followed your rebuttal essentially stating that one should not lose sight of small problems for the larger ones, but your derivative spiel about charities and about Darfur is incoherent babble. Seriously. Darfur was a non-issue in the US/ world-media until perhaps 2006, and even now, most Americans (and perhaps Germans as well?) don't know much about Darfur, don't care, and most importantly to your argument, they don't donate time or money to the issue. So what charities exactly are benefitting by distributing the 'propaganda' about the 'war' in Darfur. It's not war, it's genocide. Are you one of those who also didn't believe Holocaust Germany happened? Not enough evidence for you? Stick to a logical argument backed up by either logic and data, or please do not argue here again. I'm tired of seeing your pointless rants where you spew this ridiculous, utter, nonsense.
      - maxklein 18y ago
        Ridiculous, utter, nonsense? And what other pointless rants of mine are you talking about? If you want to make a point, then make a point based off my argument, not by descending into personal name calling. What other pointless rants are you talking about? (And by the way, I've been several times in the general conflict zone area. What are your info sources that make you so sure I am wrong?)

by cellis 18y ago

maxklein 18y ago

Darfur is utter nonsense. Remember Sierra Leone? Liberia? I saw the videos coming out of those countries, and yes, that place was a war - a REAL war. Remember the Hutu Tutsi thing? Another real massacre. There are pictures all over the net. But Darfur is just wierd. In this age of Cameras, Camera People, Live streaming, how come 400,000 people have died, and there are no videos of actual combat? Darfur is the strangest "war" I've ever heard of - it seems to be a theoretical war. I've never met the people running from there, I've never seen the videos of the actual war, I've never seen real photographic evidence of any massacres. People want to constantly hear about wars in Africa. But that age has suddenly ended. All the wars in Africa have ended, what's just left is just local clashes and conflicts between ethnic groups, and various organisations who have a vested interest in there being conflicts in Africa push up these topics. Do some real research, you'll see how wierd the Darfur war comes across compared to Sierra Leone or Liberia. Also, research the role of China in the region. Cancer sucks, but cancer has been there since the beginning of time. People get it, people die. The only reason so much focus is given on it is that it is the one disease that being rich has no effect on. So the rich people have vested interest in getting rid of cancer before other diseases like Malaria. Aids is of course a problem, but seriously, remember 10 years ago? 1998? The news about Aids was the same panic as right now. But the thing is this - for an exponentially growing disease, with drugs that are ensuring that the people infected stay alive longer, should it not have been more devastating than it turned out? The Aids projection seem to be staying at roughly the same number. I'm not saying it's not there, I'm just saying that it's not an explosive epidemic.

cellis 18y ago
In this age of Cameras, Camera People, Live streaming, how come 400,000 people have died, and there are no videos of actual combat? Perhaps if you did more research you would actually find that its kind of hard to get videos of actual combat. Even if you could get said footage,how easy do you think it is to publish stuff like this when there is a suppressive government? Just because you can't see it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. And i'm not arguing about whether or not these are problems. I'm saying that they are bigger problems than the one posted.
- maxklein 18y ago
  Then how come there is so much footage of Liberia and Sierra Leone? And Sudan is not a supressive government, it's a failed state where the central government is weak and cannot control the country.
  - lemonysnicket 18y ago
    Mark, Have you heard of the phrase, stop while you're ahead. I followed your rebuttal essentially stating that one should not lose sight of small problems for the larger ones, but your derivative spiel about charities and about Darfur is incoherent babble. Seriously. Darfur was a non-issue in the US/ world-media until perhaps 2006, and even now, most Americans (and perhaps Germans as well?) don't know much about Darfur, don't care, and most importantly to your argument, they don't donate time or money to the issue. So what charities exactly are benefitting by distributing the 'propaganda' about the 'war' in Darfur. It's not war, it's genocide. Are you one of those who also didn't believe Holocaust Germany happened? Not enough evidence for you? Stick to a logical argument backed up by either logic and data, or please do not argue here again. I'm tired of seeing your pointless rants where you spew this ridiculous, utter, nonsense.
    - maxklein 18y ago
      Ridiculous, utter, nonsense? And what other pointless rants of mine are you talking about? If you want to make a point, then make a point based off my argument, not by descending into personal name calling. What other pointless rants are you talking about? (And by the way, I've been several times in the general conflict zone area. What are your info sources that make you so sure I am wrong?)