I'm aghast that anyone would say no, let alone the majority of people. You could save thousands of lives every year for many years indeed. I think it's surprising that anyone would choose their own life over the millions of others they would save - I can think of no better cause to die for.
It would be an extremely easy decision for me. And that's coming from someone who is young, has a lot of potential, loves being alive and is deeply afraid of death :P
If they could prove it was true, and that our scientists could access it and understand it and quickly convert it into an affordable cure for all types of cancer around the world, I'd definitely do it. If I knew someone else had the cure for cancer inside them and wasn't prepared to give it up, I'd kill them myself and take away their choice. Sorry, but I just don't think anyone has a right to make the wrong choice when the stakes are so high.
See now I'm picturing a world scale hunger games between you and this other person. Where you both are aware that each other has the cure and now you both live in constant paranoia that the other is around every corner with a gun or at the top of each building with a sniper rifle. Not going to lie that actually sounds like a beast story that could have some good character development, since you and this person are sympathetic "villains."
Honestly you can't really blame people for wanting to live. Plus, as I mentioned in my post, who's to say that it will be found but not used due to some corporate douche. Because really, there is no money in healthy people. Granted I'm speaking from an American perspective, where if you're poor you can't afford to get sick. I don't blame people who say no, yeah it sounds selfish. But it doesn't sound right either to kill someone else, when your own life would also save millions. In the end it all boils down to if you can live with the guilt.
I'm not to sort of guy to easily give up his own life, but it's just the outrageous scale of the difference it would make that makes it hard for me to compute that anyone wouldn't.
I'm sure you could easily set it up so it wouldn't be used nefariously. A corporation can't just wade in and take a dead body without permission from the person's will or their surviving relatives. I'd leave it in my will that my body should only be used in a certain way by certain people, and I'd kill myself inside the research centre I thought would do the best job of getting it out of me. I might even get an international charity to help me, dispersing the drug to different countries in the most efficient and widely accessible way possible, bypassing governments and companies if necessary.
I'd definitely talk to the UN and see if some plan could be set up to ease my mind. I have great faith in the scientific community to use my body well. And even if they don't and some big drug company makes a lot of money out of me, it's still a hell of a lot better than having no cure at all.
If it was real life, and it was between me and another person, I'd just kill myself and be done with it. Whether the cure gets out or not is far more important to me than whether I die or someone else. Besides, if I'm the one who dies my name is going to be immortalized as the guy who cured cancer and that's more than consolation enough for me. They might even let me name it. I'd actually quite like to be the one who dies; I can make sure the cure is used in the right way (the stakes are way too high to trust anyone else with that) and I get to have my memory associated with it when I'm gone. I will be in every history book. I will be in the news world wide. Every person alive in the world will know my name. Children for generations will grow up knowing me as the guy who killed himself so millions could live. Even if you didn't give two shits about human life, that would be enough to convince a lot of people.
I actually don't think your name will be immortalized, but maybe the guy who did the autopsy. If I was being known for my actions and I was going to be immortalized then yes I would die as well. But I could easily see myself being forgotten while some guy steals all the credit or hides the cure.
Personal preservation and survival is deeply encoded in all animals, including the human animal. I don't put myself above that. I am sorry that you are aghast at my decision, especially since I like you and we normally agree. Survival of the fittest is a cold hard fact of life.
But you can exercise your individualism! :P You have the power to make your own individual moral choices. You don't have to follow what is encoded in you from birth, if it is encoded from birth at all. Perhaps the best way to say it is that I think it's extremely surprising so many people would give their life for one person they love, but wouldn't give their life to save millions of people (some of whom they probably know). Individual preservation clearly isn't that important when so many people would die for someone they loved.
If it was my life for ten lives, or even a hundred lives, maybe I would do the selfish thing too. But the stakes are too high. In 2012, over 8 million people died of cancer around the world. I can't get my head around how someone could live with themselves knowing that their actions had killed 8 million people every single year. If that figure stays the same and I lived for 60 more years, I would have killed half a billion people in my lifetime - more than the population of the US, the UK, Australia and Germany combined, and almost 50 times the size of the Holocaust. And that's just in my lifetime, because the positive impact of the cure would survive long after my death. An uncountable number of people would have died because I was a selfish man.
I respect your stance and you make nothing but valid points. I admit freely that I choose to be a selfish asshole hahaha. Not so much for me but for those close to me that it would hurt. So I guess it is only semi-selfish.
P.S. I might be the one who is meant to find the cure for cancer in another way. It might be cheaper and easier to use. I can't deny the world that possibility :P
Would you be willing to die for a cure?
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I'm aghast that anyone would say no, let alone the majority of people. You could save thousands of lives every year for many years indeed. I think it's surprising that anyone would choose their own life over the millions of others they would save - I can think of no better cause to die for.
It would be an extremely easy decision for me. And that's coming from someone who is young, has a lot of potential, loves being alive and is deeply afraid of death :P
If they could prove it was true, and that our scientists could access it and understand it and quickly convert it into an affordable cure for all types of cancer around the world, I'd definitely do it. If I knew someone else had the cure for cancer inside them and wasn't prepared to give it up, I'd kill them myself and take away their choice. Sorry, but I just don't think anyone has a right to make the wrong choice when the stakes are so high.
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Anime7
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anti-hero
9 years ago
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See now I'm picturing a world scale hunger games between you and this other person. Where you both are aware that each other has the cure and now you both live in constant paranoia that the other is around every corner with a gun or at the top of each building with a sniper rifle. Not going to lie that actually sounds like a beast story that could have some good character development, since you and this person are sympathetic "villains."
Honestly you can't really blame people for wanting to live. Plus, as I mentioned in my post, who's to say that it will be found but not used due to some corporate douche. Because really, there is no money in healthy people. Granted I'm speaking from an American perspective, where if you're poor you can't afford to get sick. I don't blame people who say no, yeah it sounds selfish. But it doesn't sound right either to kill someone else, when your own life would also save millions. In the end it all boils down to if you can live with the guilt.
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dom180
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I'm not to sort of guy to easily give up his own life, but it's just the outrageous scale of the difference it would make that makes it hard for me to compute that anyone wouldn't.
I'm sure you could easily set it up so it wouldn't be used nefariously. A corporation can't just wade in and take a dead body without permission from the person's will or their surviving relatives. I'd leave it in my will that my body should only be used in a certain way by certain people, and I'd kill myself inside the research centre I thought would do the best job of getting it out of me. I might even get an international charity to help me, dispersing the drug to different countries in the most efficient and widely accessible way possible, bypassing governments and companies if necessary.
I'd definitely talk to the UN and see if some plan could be set up to ease my mind. I have great faith in the scientific community to use my body well. And even if they don't and some big drug company makes a lot of money out of me, it's still a hell of a lot better than having no cure at all.
If it was real life, and it was between me and another person, I'd just kill myself and be done with it. Whether the cure gets out or not is far more important to me than whether I die or someone else. Besides, if I'm the one who dies my name is going to be immortalized as the guy who cured cancer and that's more than consolation enough for me. They might even let me name it. I'd actually quite like to be the one who dies; I can make sure the cure is used in the right way (the stakes are way too high to trust anyone else with that) and I get to have my memory associated with it when I'm gone. I will be in every history book. I will be in the news world wide. Every person alive in the world will know my name. Children for generations will grow up knowing me as the guy who killed himself so millions could live. Even if you didn't give two shits about human life, that would be enough to convince a lot of people.
And I'd be the first guy to meet aliens :P
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Anime7
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I actually don't think your name will be immortalized, but maybe the guy who did the autopsy. If I was being known for my actions and I was going to be immortalized then yes I would die as well. But I could easily see myself being forgotten while some guy steals all the credit or hides the cure.
Personal preservation and survival is deeply encoded in all animals, including the human animal. I don't put myself above that. I am sorry that you are aghast at my decision, especially since I like you and we normally agree. Survival of the fittest is a cold hard fact of life.
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dom180
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But you can exercise your individualism! :P You have the power to make your own individual moral choices. You don't have to follow what is encoded in you from birth, if it is encoded from birth at all. Perhaps the best way to say it is that I think it's extremely surprising so many people would give their life for one person they love, but wouldn't give their life to save millions of people (some of whom they probably know). Individual preservation clearly isn't that important when so many people would die for someone they loved.
If it was my life for ten lives, or even a hundred lives, maybe I would do the selfish thing too. But the stakes are too high. In 2012, over 8 million people died of cancer around the world. I can't get my head around how someone could live with themselves knowing that their actions had killed 8 million people every single year. If that figure stays the same and I lived for 60 more years, I would have killed half a billion people in my lifetime - more than the population of the US, the UK, Australia and Germany combined, and almost 50 times the size of the Holocaust. And that's just in my lifetime, because the positive impact of the cure would survive long after my death. An uncountable number of people would have died because I was a selfish man.
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anti-hero
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I respect your stance and you make nothing but valid points. I admit freely that I choose to be a selfish asshole hahaha. Not so much for me but for those close to me that it would hurt. So I guess it is only semi-selfish.
P.S. I might be the one who is meant to find the cure for cancer in another way. It might be cheaper and easier to use. I can't deny the world that possibility :P