3 ms·

Reading through this it seems like a fucking joke: we have an amazing breakthrough in cancer rates not seen in 20 years (35% down). We should have it down to b

Reading through this it seems like a fucking joke: we have an amazing breakthrough in cancer rates not seen in 20 years (35% down). We should have it down to basically zero by now. This so many resources poured into it. The same with all the better malaria treatment - great but shouldn't we have fixed this problem by now? 2023 could have been a great year with advances in AI solving protein folding, but it turned out to be the same usual shit: dictators who get other people to kill so they can get rich.

realusername 3y ago
> We should have it down to basically zero by now. This so many resources poured into it. That's explained by cancers being a family of decease and not a single decease. So it's always going to be a moving target.
- tomjen3 3y ago
  Sure, but this is targeting a specific type of cancer, not cancer in general. Or do you mean that breast cancer is also a family of disease?
roenxi 3y ago
People have to die of something. Just make sure you don't expect all-cause death rate to drop to 0. Bodies decay.
fasterik 3y ago
>We should have it down to basically zero by now. How can you claim to know a priori how many resources need to be thrown at a problem to solve it? Cancer is one of the most complex diseases in existence. Eliminating it requires sci-fi levels of technology in areas like molecular biology, gene editing, immunology, and pharmacology. I would say we have made a remarkable amount of progress given that we didn't know what DNA was 70 years ago. We already know how to eliminate malaria, which we have successfully done in many developed countries. The underlying problem is poverty and lack of infrastructure in developing countries, which isn't trivial to solve either. Perfectionism is the wrong attitude to take here. All progress happens through incremental improvement.

3 ms·

Reading through this it seems like a fucking joke: we have an amazing breakthrough in cancer rates not seen in 20 years (35% down). We should have it down to b

by tomjen3 3y ago

realusername 3y ago
> We should have it down to basically zero by now. This so many resources poured into it. That's explained by cancers being a family of decease and not a single decease. So it's always going to be a moving target.
- tomjen3 3y ago
  Sure, but this is targeting a specific type of cancer, not cancer in general. Or do you mean that breast cancer is also a family of disease?
roenxi 3y ago
People have to die of something. Just make sure you don't expect all-cause death rate to drop to 0. Bodies decay.
fasterik 3y ago
>We should have it down to basically zero by now. How can you claim to know a priori how many resources need to be thrown at a problem to solve it? Cancer is one of the most complex diseases in existence. Eliminating it requires sci-fi levels of technology in areas like molecular biology, gene editing, immunology, and pharmacology. I would say we have made a remarkable amount of progress given that we didn't know what DNA was 70 years ago. We already know how to eliminate malaria, which we have successfully done in many developed countries. The underlying problem is poverty and lack of infrastructure in developing countries, which isn't trivial to solve either. Perfectionism is the wrong attitude to take here. All progress happens through incremental improvement.