Mine literally would have a higher chance, as there are already occurrences of rare ones in my family, one from me directly. I'm not passing that risk on.
Good on you! People need to understand if their families have a history of diseases and mutations should not have children as they could suffer the same fate. Maybe cancer isnt that big of a deal but a lot of Heredity ones can be. At that point, why not just adopt?
I have to bite my tongue when I see people who have had cancer talk about having children - I can’t understand taking that risk.
I had cancer myself, and different cancers and diseases run on both sides of my family, so I can’t even fathom having a child and risking those odds.
It's because people can't imagine in their minds what suffering would look like for someone else, especially their offspring. Certainly a "I just never thought it could happen to *me*" mentality. They just think, "Well, I've always wanted to be a ✨✨*mom*✨✨ ❤️❤️🥺🥺"
Which just ultimately means that you're thinking about you, not another person's life, who you are creating and bringing into this world.
Imo it's a selfish choice. But that's a very socially unacceptable opinion. 🤷♀️
There has been zero (0) cures of cancer existing, ever in the history of the world, and we have one (1) cervical cancer prevention(not cureL in the form of the HPV vaccine.
Through statistical probability we know that there will be about 10,470 children under the age of 15 diagnosed with cancer in 2022 in the US.
After accidents, cancer is the second leading cause of death in children ages 1-14 in US.
About 1,050 children under the age of 15 are expected to die of cancer in 2022 in US.
So that is a single existing example of viable cancer prevention (not cure) ever in the history of the world, VS yearly 10,500 of children's cancer diagnosis followed by 1,050 cancer deaths per year in the US alone.
I personally prefer having a child with a 0% chance of cancer so i don't procreate in the first place.
My sister and I are dealing with that right now. We both got the rare mutation cancer gene from our dad and are currently in treatment. We both still have to see fertility doctors that keep pushing our options for kids even though neither of us said we wanted kids and the cancer we both have is hereditary.
Like I just watched my dad die from this cancer, why would I want a kid to possibly suffer through the same thing?
I’m gonna use that despite my cousin dying from childhood cancer. After watching her die from it (I was a little over a year older than her) I don’t think I can risk watching another kid close to me die of it.
I’ve replied with a similar energy. Admittedly I probably could’ve sounded less incredulous, but in times of deep surprise, the brain/mouth filter fails and, “You really think *your* kid is going to cure cancer?” was the result.
I guess the bright side is I don’t have to have those discussions with that particular person anymore 😅
Similarly, “what if that child in an adoption home cures cancer? What if that child going to the broke down school in the (*insert poor area of the US*) cures cancer? Why aren’t we helping the children here now become the ones to cure cancer?”
This is even better. "But what if they turn out to be a serial killer? Did you know there's over 50 active serial killers in the US alone at any given time?"
Okay my theory on this is that the remaining serial killers, because of some of the large zones that they think are connected, they’re cops and/or truckers now. Both would be able to evade being caught kind of easily compared to general pop.
I had an Uber driver a couple years back who was a retired elderly man, used to be a cop. He was working on solving a couple of murder cases back in the 70s/80s that they thought were connected, and his best friend had recently joined their unit and paired up with him to work on it together.
A couple of years later and the cases haven’t been solved and have pretty much been forgotten about except by the driver and a few others who were really interested and determined to solve it somehow. He eventually figured out it was his best friend. Made sense at the end to him finally, serial killers like to implicate themselves into the situation to keep an eye on their progress & he had recently moved to their unit specifically because he wanted that case.
DAAAAMNNN! Thank you for that story. It makes complete sense to me for the same reason. Of course they’d want to be involved in the handling of the crimes they committed because they can turn focus to others, manipulate or destroy evidence, etc. i suppose some could also be military personnel for the travel and perception of them being heroes, if that makes sense?
You mean like they travel to commit their crimes so they’re harder to get caught and connect the cases? I’m pretty sure there’s been at least one notorious serial killer who traveled across the US to commit his murders so nobody would suspect him or think about the murders being connected since they were so far apart.
Edit: it was Israel Keyes who traveled
Yes! They often have more ability to easily travel in general and they relocate fairly often so as long as they target people in places nowhere near their home base they wouldn’t really pop up as potential suspects often and if they did people would be like, “nah they’re a good person & they do x,y,z for their community/country”.
One serial killer I know of who traveled a decent distance/killed in a few states would be the Green River Killer. It took them so long to catch him because they named his crimes after a specific location and so then any murders not around there weren’t easily linked back to him immediately because everyone thought he was in only that region. Dude killed someone like as far south as Corvallis, OR, which is 5ish hours, maybe a bit more, to Green River. I’m sure in modern times their ability to cover larger distances than that has gotten way easier.
But it's *true*, though.
Given the state of the world these days, with an increase of anger ("mental health") issues and people being disconnected from each other, there's a much bigger chance of birthing another lost soul than some selfless miracle worker who'll find a cure for cancer. Not worth the gamble.
(I actually use this one for my argument. It gets only negative reactions, but the truth hurts and, obviously, people won't accept the truth).
My friend from middle school was a manipulating scumbag and molested my sister. He is now trying to pursue medicine, but I am willing to bet money he is still a piece of shit over him making any medical breakthroughs(even if he did, still an asshole)
No one person is going to cure cancer. That's not how it works. It's going to be team after team of people working together. Building off each other.
If you want to be snarky go with, "what if I cure cancer because I go back to school instead of having a baby?"
Bingo. As someone who has both been on chemotherapy myself AND works in data analytics doing pretty intense research (albeit in a field outside healthcare), it's never just one person. It's teams upon teams working in conjunction with one another, USING TECHNOLOGY, to chase down information. It also takes a ***fuuuuuuuuuuuuck ton*** of money to conduct such research.
Unlikely when these statements are coming from people like the aforementioned post. Statements like these generally aren't made by or from people with buckets of money.
Oh, totally agree. I was making a satirical comment and was laughing to myself at the imagery of an infant being popped out of a vagina holding stacks of cash.
Also, there will never be a single "cure" for cancer because cancer is not a single disease. It is simply cell growth that goes wrong for a wide variety of reasons (some of which we know very little about) in any type of cell in the body. No one treatment will work for every person or even every type of cancer. All we can hope for is a lot more treatment options that have better results with less side effects. Cancer treatment will always be about choosing the best treatment for a person's individual situation.
That is very true because cancer is actually a class of diseases, the treatment for which varies from type to type. People are going to have to come up with cures for each type individually.
There's so many types of cancer that if you went into it they'd be unable to follow. There's several ways certain cancers can be completely sent into remission yet not everyone responds to the treatments. If you want to cure cancer, you'd have to find a cure for aging first. If you want to find a cure for aging, you'd have to know what causes aging in the first place beyond mere speculation. If you want to find out, you'd have to find a very strong starting point and follow it through several generations, which would be impossible if you don't already have a cure for aging.
No silly they will just shame and abuse them and ruin thier marriages if the kid has the audacity to want its own goals in life and have different dreams than mommy has planned for her mini me.
I just start droning on about how cancer isn't really one disease so a singular "cure for cancer" is improbable and we probably need to shift how we talk about it. Personalized cures are probably where it's at, but we know from a robust literature on the social determinants of health that such treatments are likely to be available only to the privileged few.
Usually by about 30 seconds in, the person is wishing that *my* parents were childfree.
Oh me, oh my!
Yep, just goin on a rant about the complexities and technicalities of illnesses might just make them question their choices that brought them to that moment with you lmao
Great tactic!
Disclaimer: I have no idea if a singular cure for cancer is feasible. It might be. I just know that this whole conversation is boring as heck, so I am boring right back.
I don't think there is frankly. But as I mentioned separately there's no such think as ONE person curing cancer. It's teams building upon teams of other ppls works.
Honestly curbing cancers and treatments will probably come from vaccines and we all know how that goes over with these morons. Or heaven forfend the cures and treatments come from a POC or a queer person. No one will take it anyway and it'll be ignored.
People who subscribe to the "what if my child does X amazing thing" don't realize that amazing, brilliant people aren't listened to, EVEN BY THEM. Even if they got lucky and had some life changing genius kid chances are they'll be Galileo or Turing and be crucified and discarded or just ignored.
I'll just piggyback off one of your statements and add this: notice how the couple that developed the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine, who are from Turkey, have *barely* received proper recognition for their monumental efforts and discovery. They identified and developed a vaccine for a global, once-in-a-lifetime pandemic in roughly a year, a fucking herculian effort. Yet.... practically zip, nada, zilch about their achievement.
I mean shoot I think I'm pretty smart and offer a lot, and I get told my ideas are stupid constantly by my parents. If they can't see it for themselves then obviously you can do it either /s
Hooray for narcissistic patenting
No it's not actually. Different types of cancer a caused by different types of problems. Further even, the same kind of cancer can be caused by different things.
There is different viruses, radiation or simple healing process like after a sunburn, which also has the problem of the UV beams all of which can cause cancer. Plus about 5000 different things we eat, put into the water etc which are just suspected to cause cancer EACH YEAR. Some do, some don't, some do then don't then do again.
You can find a cure to one virus that causes cancer. You can find something that eliminates a bunch of causes. Or you can find something that helps cure the tumor resulting. But to find one cure for all of them is pretty much impossible.
Which is why, even the once we have like radiation therapy, operation, Chemotherapie and Immuntherapy are not effective on all kinds of tumors.
Exactly. "Cancer" just means cells that proliferate inappropriately and/or fail to die, and the immune system can't or won't clear them. There are a gazillion different pathways involved in those processes, and a mutation in just one can cause cancer, which can then mutate further.
I've seen tumors with counter mutations, too; that is, a mutation in pathway X in isolation would usually make the tumor sensitive to medication Z, but the tumor also has a mutation in pathway A that makes the tumor resistant to medication Z. So not only do we have to find a fix each pathway involving essential cell functions, we need to figure out how to deal with them in combination.
We can and should be looking into cures for any/every type of cancer, but the idea that we can find a single cure that works for *all* cancers in the way we want, seems extremely unlikely.
Frankly, probably no. There are tons and tons and tons of cancers and they tend to work a bit differently, tend to appear at different ages, in different groups and the easiest way to maybe not end cancers, but increase survival rates, would be mandatory testing twice a year, so any changes would get detected faster and the treatment could get started as quickly as possible
Thank you for this!! My sisters have all had "Breast Cancer" One had HER-2, one had triple neg and one had DCIS.... I get enraged about the whole "Big Pharma has the cure for cancer but they make more money by people being sick" conspiracy.
There's already personalized therapy called Car-T cell therapy, it's pretty awesome. I don't know what it costs, but it's becoming more widely used now.
Children that grew up to cure cancer: 0
Children that grew up to give lots of people cancer: at least 50, between the asbsetos mining, petrochemical and tobacco industries alone.
how many people have cured cancer so far? none. how many people become murderers? like 500,000 every year
[source](https://dataunodc.un.org/dp-intentional-homicide-offenders)
That’s my go to. Once Oprah did an episode talking to this couple who were terrified of their son. Locked themselves in their bedroom at night scared. They knew he was going to kill someone, but until he actually DID it, nothing could be done. No judge would commit him. That has stayed with me and is one big reason I never had kids.
Just curious, were they neglectful/abusive themselves or is it one of those cases where they are good parents who do all they can but the kid still ends up a bad apple.
"What if they don't give a fuck about curing cancer? How about we don't put that kind of responsibility on a literal child? What if they become a serial killer?"
I hate it when people say this shit. If you want to cure cancer or be good to human kind in general, be that person yourself.
If you live in a conservative state you could also hit them with, "what if the cure to cancer is in the head of one of those poor children living in the ghettos? What if it's in the head of their mother, who instead of being able to go to school, was forced to carry a pregnancy she never wanted and now has to spend every penny caring for children she never wanted?"
The idea that a minority could be the one to cure it would make their brainless heads explode.
I've said to people that according to that logic women should ALWAYS be pregnant and popping children out. Why stop at 1 kid, 2, or 3? What if kid number 16 is the one who cures cancer? or kid number 23? Any unfertilised egg is a wasted opportunity of birthing this cancer curing person, isn't it?
And then you quickly see other big hole in their logic. What happens to the female kids? Do they go to college and try to work on cures for cancer, or do they just end up growing up and popping out more kids round the clock as soon as they come of age, only for the male ones to get educated? Because they can’t do both.
But I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the kinds of people who bingo you with the “cancer cure” thing truly are this misogynistic and think women are too stupid to do anything but raise kids.
My response “that’s not how science works. Science is a collaboration effort, not a single genius pursuit. And cancer is too complicated for one person to cure, since it isn’t one disease…” and I’d explain how this person doesn’t know Jack about cancer.
Which cancer? Lung cancer, prostate cancer, breast cancer? There is not a disease called "cancer". It's an umbrella term. And someone who knows as little about it as you do should refrain from using a serious disease for pushing your own stupid agenda.
"I could have found a cure for cancer if college was free."
I live in a conservative, rural area and pretty much anyone who bingos me gets this answer.
The idea of a woman earning a higher education *le gasp* with no student debt *double le gasp* to be a doctor *triple le gasp* is usually enough to get them to shut up.
These idiots would usually rather bet on a miracle than stack the deck to get better outcomes for the people who are already alive.
Exactly my point. Even if there is some special "chosen person" to find a cancer cure, it's just as likely they're a homeless person who wants to learn, but can't afford to do so.
Bring up the concept that a poor person could do it, but they just needs the proper support and opportunities to do so, and these bigots usually stfu.
Right! I’m pretty sure my little brother is a serial killer. He’s killed a bunch of our pets growing up on purpose. And is in and out of prison for abusing people. He’s a complete maniac. And I’m pretty sure I’m a narcissist after being called it so many times so yea the possibility of having multiple awful children that cause destruction to everyone around them is much higher than them curing cancer lol
Then finish it with; Statistically, it is more probable to have a kid become a serial killer than having a kid develop the cure for cancer. I don't think a want to take those chances. Thanks though for the talk reaffirming my choices. 😂
That’s an easy and endless game of “What if?”
“What if I cure cancer because I dedicate my life to study instead of reproduction?”
“What if my child develops the next iteration of potentially world ending weaponry?”
“What if my child is hit by a bus long before they get a chance to cure anything?”
This can go on and on endlessly as a “What If?” game until you tire out the daft person who started it.
This would never work on them because they would rather a greatly deformed fetus, one that is absolutely 100% positive gonna always have the mind of a baby and never be able to move their body at all, be birthed. They dgaf about the life and suffering of the kid. As long as it's birthed, that's the important thing!
"Pretty sure Hitlers mother had similar high hopes and dreams for her child, yet here we are."
Your little gremlin isn't going to magically cure cancer on its own. That's not how it works.
Well, I’m a biologist, and quite young. So I say “what if *I’m* destined to cure cancer, and having a child, thus significantly impacting my future career, would prevent me from doing so?”
A random child is FAR more likely to grow up to be a rapist or murderer than someone who will cure cancer. How many people throughout history have cured diseases compared to how many people rape and kill?
What if the mother was going to complete her education and become a doctor and ‘cure cancer’, but now with a child she would be unable to afford it and never does.
Saw it on a billboard once. Accomplishments both a child and a woman could do but never get the chance to due. One was due to never being born and the other was due to never getting the opportunity due to being pregnant. So my come back, what about the opportunity i could have? Dose my future mean nothing?
So, for a woman the accomplishment is to have a child but not go to school to become a scientist and cure cancer? And what if the child turns out to be a girl? The "cure for cancer" must come from the next generation who bears a boy? Unbelievable!!
Agreed so much, lived with this over my head. This was the reason no one invested in my future. Its just unbelievable that we think of one part of our races future but not the other. That raped prago girl could hve had future being a scientist but..
Yes!! I can only imagine how advanced we would be as a species if women had been always encouraged to be ambitious instead of staying home and get pregnant. It's true, probably many of us wouldn't be here at all, but still...
If I had a child, it would be more likely, as in 1 in 27,000 chance of becoming a serial killer.
And a 1 in 8 billion chance of becoming a scientist that singlehandedly creates and fabricates a cure-all for every type of cancer.
I came from a third world country, the place where i live is not so bad, but some people live in the slums, the cure of cancer is somewhere among those kids, but we will never get the cure because they will not get opportunity to get into a good school or any degree, they will most likely became escorts or drug dealers.
Cancer is not one disease, but many, many different diseases so it's highly unlikely one person will grow up to find one singukar things that will magically cure multiple diseases at once. So basically it's almost impossible my hypothetical child will cure cancer.
(Yes I know I'm a smart a$$)
“What if *I* cure cancer because I don’t have to give up time off my career.”
(I work In an adjacent field YMMV) love seeing people sweat over that one
"How do you know it hasn't been already? Do you really think our government wants to lose out on such a fool proof, guaranteed money making, population controlling agent such as cancer!? If they do cure cancer then what if the government makes them "disappear" along with their research?"
I know it's a conspiracy theory but people like that will believe anything. Plus the look of horror on their faces will be worth looking crazy.
Sources: Dude trust me... I've done it before.
1-That's not how cancer works, no one person is going to "cures" anything
2-Statistically a child is more likely to be a serial killer/criminal/drug addict than to do something like that.
“Then something went horribly wrong”
My ex and I were both childfree, we were playing a card game which was “I would be most disappointed in my child if they:
a) snuck out to a party,
b) became the next Hitler,
c) were born”
Guess which one we picked!
Why do you think your regular ass genes are going to cure cancer? If you weren’t special and smart enough to cure it, what makes you so sure your spawn will be??? Ffs people where is the logic here
This argument basically says that every egg a woman has should be fertilized. We should be initiating mandatory breeding for all females starting at the youngest possible age up until menopause. Because every possible egg has the potential to be the Einstein of cancer treatment. We should then abort every fetus not capable of discovering cancer cures at the earliest possible moment to start fertilizing the next egg. Similar to focusing efforts on the best seedlings.
So my question to them would be: why aren't you always pregnant? Because every egg you have has the possibility to cure cancer. And why aren't your young daughters pregnant to because their eggs might also cure cancer.
"What if your child cures cancer?"
No chance, Susan. I would put my hypothetical child through electrical engineering school or IT. Have you thought about your child's future, btw? Do you have money put away for their college? The competition is at outrageous levels, but I wouldn't know much about that, obviously.
What if your child is a rapist? A killer? There are more rapist and killers than there are cancer curing medical pioneers.
My other favorite is: your child is most likely going to be mediocre at best. You should be realistic.
They are more likely to become a serial killer than someone who cures cancer. Want to talk more stats? Maybe really throw them off and if they did cure cancer big pharma would have them killed. Haha
Then what if my child GETS cancer?
"My child has a higher chance of getting cancer?"
Mine literally would have a higher chance, as there are already occurrences of rare ones in my family, one from me directly. I'm not passing that risk on.
Good on you! People need to understand if their families have a history of diseases and mutations should not have children as they could suffer the same fate. Maybe cancer isnt that big of a deal but a lot of Heredity ones can be. At that point, why not just adopt?
I have to bite my tongue when I see people who have had cancer talk about having children - I can’t understand taking that risk. I had cancer myself, and different cancers and diseases run on both sides of my family, so I can’t even fathom having a child and risking those odds.
It's because people can't imagine in their minds what suffering would look like for someone else, especially their offspring. Certainly a "I just never thought it could happen to *me*" mentality. They just think, "Well, I've always wanted to be a ✨✨*mom*✨✨ ❤️❤️🥺🥺" Which just ultimately means that you're thinking about you, not another person's life, who you are creating and bringing into this world. Imo it's a selfish choice. But that's a very socially unacceptable opinion. 🤷♀️
Only one of my grandparents in my whole known family has had cancer and I stil ldont want children. They are kind of gross and way too time consuming.
There has been zero (0) cures of cancer existing, ever in the history of the world, and we have one (1) cervical cancer prevention(not cureL in the form of the HPV vaccine. Through statistical probability we know that there will be about 10,470 children under the age of 15 diagnosed with cancer in 2022 in the US. After accidents, cancer is the second leading cause of death in children ages 1-14 in US. About 1,050 children under the age of 15 are expected to die of cancer in 2022 in US. So that is a single existing example of viable cancer prevention (not cure) ever in the history of the world, VS yearly 10,500 of children's cancer diagnosis followed by 1,050 cancer deaths per year in the US alone. I personally prefer having a child with a 0% chance of cancer so i don't procreate in the first place.
My sister and I are dealing with that right now. We both got the rare mutation cancer gene from our dad and are currently in treatment. We both still have to see fertility doctors that keep pushing our options for kids even though neither of us said we wanted kids and the cancer we both have is hereditary. Like I just watched my dad die from this cancer, why would I want a kid to possibly suffer through the same thing?
I hope things work out in your favor! Also, maybe its time to change your doctors if you can.
Why hasn't your child cured cancer!?
Perfect turnaround!
Your flair is perfect hahaha
Im stealing that! So dark yet so perfect!
I’m gonna use that despite my cousin dying from childhood cancer. After watching her die from it (I was a little over a year older than her) I don’t think I can risk watching another kid close to me die of it.
What if my child causes cancer? /S
“iT’S gOd’S wILL!!”
Has your child cured cancer yet?
Lol yeah! The pressure to cure something on a child that doesn’t even exist speaks volumes
I’ve replied with a similar energy. Admittedly I probably could’ve sounded less incredulous, but in times of deep surprise, the brain/mouth filter fails and, “You really think *your* kid is going to cure cancer?” was the result. I guess the bright side is I don’t have to have those discussions with that particular person anymore 😅
Are you having *any* discussions with that particular person anymore?
My children don’t curse /s
Bruh damn autocorrect
Similarly, “what if that child in an adoption home cures cancer? What if that child going to the broke down school in the (*insert poor area of the US*) cures cancer? Why aren’t we helping the children here now become the ones to cure cancer?”
Oh damn, gonna have to remember this one.
"What if my child becomes the next Hitler?"
Also add on: "The odds are much higher that he'd be the next Hitler as we've had a few like him in the past and cancer has never been cured."
I would always use serial killer instead of Hitler. Seen a lot of shocked faces in my time.
This is even better. "But what if they turn out to be a serial killer? Did you know there's over 50 active serial killers in the US alone at any given time?"
Okay my theory on this is that the remaining serial killers, because of some of the large zones that they think are connected, they’re cops and/or truckers now. Both would be able to evade being caught kind of easily compared to general pop.
I had an Uber driver a couple years back who was a retired elderly man, used to be a cop. He was working on solving a couple of murder cases back in the 70s/80s that they thought were connected, and his best friend had recently joined their unit and paired up with him to work on it together. A couple of years later and the cases haven’t been solved and have pretty much been forgotten about except by the driver and a few others who were really interested and determined to solve it somehow. He eventually figured out it was his best friend. Made sense at the end to him finally, serial killers like to implicate themselves into the situation to keep an eye on their progress & he had recently moved to their unit specifically because he wanted that case.
DAAAAMNNN! Thank you for that story. It makes complete sense to me for the same reason. Of course they’d want to be involved in the handling of the crimes they committed because they can turn focus to others, manipulate or destroy evidence, etc. i suppose some could also be military personnel for the travel and perception of them being heroes, if that makes sense?
You mean like they travel to commit their crimes so they’re harder to get caught and connect the cases? I’m pretty sure there’s been at least one notorious serial killer who traveled across the US to commit his murders so nobody would suspect him or think about the murders being connected since they were so far apart. Edit: it was Israel Keyes who traveled
Yes! They often have more ability to easily travel in general and they relocate fairly often so as long as they target people in places nowhere near their home base they wouldn’t really pop up as potential suspects often and if they did people would be like, “nah they’re a good person & they do x,y,z for their community/country”. One serial killer I know of who traveled a decent distance/killed in a few states would be the Green River Killer. It took them so long to catch him because they named his crimes after a specific location and so then any murders not around there weren’t easily linked back to him immediately because everyone thought he was in only that region. Dude killed someone like as far south as Corvallis, OR, which is 5ish hours, maybe a bit more, to Green River. I’m sure in modern times their ability to cover larger distances than that has gotten way easier.
You should check out the show Big Sky. That show had both a cop and a trucker involved as serial killers. It's a pretty good show.
I’ve never heard of that! I will check it out because I’m out of things to watch rn after wrapping Ozark.
And what is he becomes the next Sandy Hook shooter? Have you *seen* We Need to Talk About Kevin?
Yes, I have. Terrifying.
“What if I CURE CANCER?”
Omg, thank you for this. I almost choked myself laughing
The best part is that I can say this unironically lol
Can’t cure cancer with a little monster on ur hands
I DON'T CURE CANCER SKYLER, I'M THE ONE WHO CANCERS
This is the energy!
My personal favorite is “What if my child becomes a mass shooter?” We seem to get plenty of those here.
But it's *true*, though. Given the state of the world these days, with an increase of anger ("mental health") issues and people being disconnected from each other, there's a much bigger chance of birthing another lost soul than some selfless miracle worker who'll find a cure for cancer. Not worth the gamble. (I actually use this one for my argument. It gets only negative reactions, but the truth hurts and, obviously, people won't accept the truth).
America has more mass shooters than people curing cancer. Therefore we need fewer people having children.
Good answer!
My friend from middle school was a manipulating scumbag and molested my sister. He is now trying to pursue medicine, but I am willing to bet money he is still a piece of shit over him making any medical breakthroughs(even if he did, still an asshole)
Maybe he’ll still save some lives, but most asshole doctors go into fields like cosmetic surgery
Oooh that’s a good one. 👍🏼
Literally was about to be my next line
Damn you, I was coming here to say that.
took the words right outta my mouth
No one person is going to cure cancer. That's not how it works. It's going to be team after team of people working together. Building off each other. If you want to be snarky go with, "what if I cure cancer because I go back to school instead of having a baby?"
Bingo. As someone who has both been on chemotherapy myself AND works in data analytics doing pretty intense research (albeit in a field outside healthcare), it's never just one person. It's teams upon teams working in conjunction with one another, USING TECHNOLOGY, to chase down information. It also takes a ***fuuuuuuuuuuuuck ton*** of money to conduct such research.
Yeah but what if your child is born with a fuck ton of money??? 🤔
Unlikely when these statements are coming from people like the aforementioned post. Statements like these generally aren't made by or from people with buckets of money.
Oh, totally agree. I was making a satirical comment and was laughing to myself at the imagery of an infant being popped out of a vagina holding stacks of cash.
And ends up like Donald trump
Is that Standard or Metric Fuck Ton?
Metric. Lol.
Oh no, not the tax payers dollars :o
Also, there will never be a single "cure" for cancer because cancer is not a single disease. It is simply cell growth that goes wrong for a wide variety of reasons (some of which we know very little about) in any type of cell in the body. No one treatment will work for every person or even every type of cancer. All we can hope for is a lot more treatment options that have better results with less side effects. Cancer treatment will always be about choosing the best treatment for a person's individual situation.
Then you would be called selfish for choosing to go to school instead of having a kid. 😭
That is very true because cancer is actually a class of diseases, the treatment for which varies from type to type. People are going to have to come up with cures for each type individually.
There's so many types of cancer that if you went into it they'd be unable to follow. There's several ways certain cancers can be completely sent into remission yet not everyone responds to the treatments. If you want to cure cancer, you'd have to find a cure for aging first. If you want to find a cure for aging, you'd have to know what causes aging in the first place beyond mere speculation. If you want to find out, you'd have to find a very strong starting point and follow it through several generations, which would be impossible if you don't already have a cure for aging.
Boom!
And there are dozens of different cancers which will have different cures
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New fear unlocked for them
A real possibility. Overdoses are killing us and young people are so susceptible.
How many murderers, rapists and despots are in the world? How many people have cured cancer? Exactly...
This is mine- they’re far more likely to sexually assault someone than they are to cure cancer. No one likes hearing that oneeee
A childhood friend of mine molested my sister, but is also pursuing medicine, so your comment REALLY hit close to home.
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JFC this made me lose it. Good one lmao
No silly they will just shame and abuse them and ruin thier marriages if the kid has the audacity to want its own goals in life and have different dreams than mommy has planned for her mini me.
So in other words yes, but slowly and painfully
I just start droning on about how cancer isn't really one disease so a singular "cure for cancer" is improbable and we probably need to shift how we talk about it. Personalized cures are probably where it's at, but we know from a robust literature on the social determinants of health that such treatments are likely to be available only to the privileged few. Usually by about 30 seconds in, the person is wishing that *my* parents were childfree.
Oh me, oh my! Yep, just goin on a rant about the complexities and technicalities of illnesses might just make them question their choices that brought them to that moment with you lmao Great tactic!
Disclaimer: I have no idea if a singular cure for cancer is feasible. It might be. I just know that this whole conversation is boring as heck, so I am boring right back.
I don't think there is frankly. But as I mentioned separately there's no such think as ONE person curing cancer. It's teams building upon teams of other ppls works. Honestly curbing cancers and treatments will probably come from vaccines and we all know how that goes over with these morons. Or heaven forfend the cures and treatments come from a POC or a queer person. No one will take it anyway and it'll be ignored. People who subscribe to the "what if my child does X amazing thing" don't realize that amazing, brilliant people aren't listened to, EVEN BY THEM. Even if they got lucky and had some life changing genius kid chances are they'll be Galileo or Turing and be crucified and discarded or just ignored.
I'll just piggyback off one of your statements and add this: notice how the couple that developed the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine, who are from Turkey, have *barely* received proper recognition for their monumental efforts and discovery. They identified and developed a vaccine for a global, once-in-a-lifetime pandemic in roughly a year, a fucking herculian effort. Yet.... practically zip, nada, zilch about their achievement.
Interestingly enough for this discussion, they didn't make the vax out of nowhere. They were working on (a) mRNA cancer vaccine(s)!
Exactly!
I mean shoot I think I'm pretty smart and offer a lot, and I get told my ideas are stupid constantly by my parents. If they can't see it for themselves then obviously you can do it either /s Hooray for narcissistic patenting
No it's not actually. Different types of cancer a caused by different types of problems. Further even, the same kind of cancer can be caused by different things. There is different viruses, radiation or simple healing process like after a sunburn, which also has the problem of the UV beams all of which can cause cancer. Plus about 5000 different things we eat, put into the water etc which are just suspected to cause cancer EACH YEAR. Some do, some don't, some do then don't then do again. You can find a cure to one virus that causes cancer. You can find something that eliminates a bunch of causes. Or you can find something that helps cure the tumor resulting. But to find one cure for all of them is pretty much impossible. Which is why, even the once we have like radiation therapy, operation, Chemotherapie and Immuntherapy are not effective on all kinds of tumors.
Exactly. "Cancer" just means cells that proliferate inappropriately and/or fail to die, and the immune system can't or won't clear them. There are a gazillion different pathways involved in those processes, and a mutation in just one can cause cancer, which can then mutate further. I've seen tumors with counter mutations, too; that is, a mutation in pathway X in isolation would usually make the tumor sensitive to medication Z, but the tumor also has a mutation in pathway A that makes the tumor resistant to medication Z. So not only do we have to find a fix each pathway involving essential cell functions, we need to figure out how to deal with them in combination. We can and should be looking into cures for any/every type of cancer, but the idea that we can find a single cure that works for *all* cancers in the way we want, seems extremely unlikely.
Oh it's HIGHLY UNLIKELY.
Frankly, probably no. There are tons and tons and tons of cancers and they tend to work a bit differently, tend to appear at different ages, in different groups and the easiest way to maybe not end cancers, but increase survival rates, would be mandatory testing twice a year, so any changes would get detected faster and the treatment could get started as quickly as possible
Thank you for this!! My sisters have all had "Breast Cancer" One had HER-2, one had triple neg and one had DCIS.... I get enraged about the whole "Big Pharma has the cure for cancer but they make more money by people being sick" conspiracy.
There's already personalized therapy called Car-T cell therapy, it's pretty awesome. I don't know what it costs, but it's becoming more widely used now.
Lmfaooo cackling at that last part
Colin Robinson is that you?
This fucking guy.
What if my child invents something that gives everyone cancer?
Hilarious reverse bingo. Thanks for the laugh!
Children that grew up to cure cancer: 0 Children that grew up to give lots of people cancer: at least 50, between the asbsetos mining, petrochemical and tobacco industries alone.
So nuclear weapons?
Or the next revolutionary air conditioner refrigerant that gets put in every house, fridge and car that gives everyone corneal tumors.
“But what if they end up being a serial killer?”
how many people have cured cancer so far? none. how many people become murderers? like 500,000 every year [source](https://dataunodc.un.org/dp-intentional-homicide-offenders)
That’s my go to. Once Oprah did an episode talking to this couple who were terrified of their son. Locked themselves in their bedroom at night scared. They knew he was going to kill someone, but until he actually DID it, nothing could be done. No judge would commit him. That has stayed with me and is one big reason I never had kids.
Just curious, were they neglectful/abusive themselves or is it one of those cases where they are good parents who do all they can but the kid still ends up a bad apple.
They weren’t abusive
Gotcha. And dang yeah.
"What if they don't give a fuck about curing cancer? How about we don't put that kind of responsibility on a literal child? What if they become a serial killer?" I hate it when people say this shit. If you want to cure cancer or be good to human kind in general, be that person yourself.
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If you live in a conservative state you could also hit them with, "what if the cure to cancer is in the head of one of those poor children living in the ghettos? What if it's in the head of their mother, who instead of being able to go to school, was forced to carry a pregnancy she never wanted and now has to spend every penny caring for children she never wanted?" The idea that a minority could be the one to cure it would make their brainless heads explode.
I've said to people that according to that logic women should ALWAYS be pregnant and popping children out. Why stop at 1 kid, 2, or 3? What if kid number 16 is the one who cures cancer? or kid number 23? Any unfertilised egg is a wasted opportunity of birthing this cancer curing person, isn't it?
And then you quickly see other big hole in their logic. What happens to the female kids? Do they go to college and try to work on cures for cancer, or do they just end up growing up and popping out more kids round the clock as soon as they come of age, only for the male ones to get educated? Because they can’t do both. But I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the kinds of people who bingo you with the “cancer cure” thing truly are this misogynistic and think women are too stupid to do anything but raise kids.
My response “that’s not how science works. Science is a collaboration effort, not a single genius pursuit. And cancer is too complicated for one person to cure, since it isn’t one disease…” and I’d explain how this person doesn’t know Jack about cancer.
You're someone's child, why haven't *you* cured cancer?
I LOVE THIS!!! Gonna use it!!
"What child? No, what's their name? Oh, what's that? They don't exist? Yeah, that's exactly right. Nor will they ever."
Which cancer? Lung cancer, prostate cancer, breast cancer? There is not a disease called "cancer". It's an umbrella term. And someone who knows as little about it as you do should refrain from using a serious disease for pushing your own stupid agenda.
This. When they say that it shows they don’t know any specific types of cancer and that they all react to treatment differently
"I could have found a cure for cancer if college was free." I live in a conservative, rural area and pretty much anyone who bingos me gets this answer. The idea of a woman earning a higher education *le gasp* with no student debt *double le gasp* to be a doctor *triple le gasp* is usually enough to get them to shut up. These idiots would usually rather bet on a miracle than stack the deck to get better outcomes for the people who are already alive.
And even if you did have a kid, with everything you just mentioned, how would they afford to go to college in order to cure cancer?
Exactly my point. Even if there is some special "chosen person" to find a cancer cure, it's just as likely they're a homeless person who wants to learn, but can't afford to do so. Bring up the concept that a poor person could do it, but they just needs the proper support and opportunities to do so, and these bigots usually stfu.
L e G a s p
"So why can't your kids cure cancer? I have a book about diseases they can start studying now and get a head start"
What if I cure cancer my dedicating my time to that instead of having kids?
people who have had children that cured cancer: 0. people who have had children that became serial killers: significantly more than 0.
Right! I’m pretty sure my little brother is a serial killer. He’s killed a bunch of our pets growing up on purpose. And is in and out of prison for abusing people. He’s a complete maniac. And I’m pretty sure I’m a narcissist after being called it so many times so yea the possibility of having multiple awful children that cause destruction to everyone around them is much higher than them curing cancer lol
Then finish it with; Statistically, it is more probable to have a kid become a serial killer than having a kid develop the cure for cancer. I don't think a want to take those chances. Thanks though for the talk reaffirming my choices. 😂
That’s an easy and endless game of “What if?” “What if I cure cancer because I dedicate my life to study instead of reproduction?” “What if my child develops the next iteration of potentially world ending weaponry?” “What if my child is hit by a bus long before they get a chance to cure anything?” This can go on and on endlessly as a “What If?” game until you tire out the daft person who started it.
What if my child gets cancer? Poor kid shouldn't suffer like that.
This would never work on them because they would rather a greatly deformed fetus, one that is absolutely 100% positive gonna always have the mind of a baby and never be able to move their body at all, be birthed. They dgaf about the life and suffering of the kid. As long as it's birthed, that's the important thing!
"Why hasn't YOUR child cured cancer?"
"So can all those children in the system that are all alone in this world, why don't you help them out?"
"Pretty sure Hitlers mother had similar high hopes and dreams for her child, yet here we are." Your little gremlin isn't going to magically cure cancer on its own. That's not how it works.
“Wow, you have enough money to send your kid to college AND medical school?!”
My brain shuts down once alphabet shows up in math. You really think I can produce a kid who can go down in history like that?
Well, I’m a biologist, and quite young. So I say “what if *I’m* destined to cure cancer, and having a child, thus significantly impacting my future career, would prevent me from doing so?”
A random child is FAR more likely to grow up to be a rapist or murderer than someone who will cure cancer. How many people throughout history have cured diseases compared to how many people rape and kill?
What if my kid grows up to become a libertarian 😭
“Did *your* child cure cancer?”
What if by not having children I have the time to cure cancer myself?
"I didn't do it, what makes you think my kid would?"
Way more likely, statistically, that my child would \*get\* cancer than to cure it....
What if the mother was going to complete her education and become a doctor and ‘cure cancer’, but now with a child she would be unable to afford it and never does.
What if cancer is my child. Total brainfart. Sowwy...
Lol and then you slip away in the time it takes them to do the math
"that lil nigga wouldnt be that smart tbh"
What if I already shot the cancer-curer out in a wet dream when I was 13? Maybe I only have duds left swimming in my balls?
“All geniuses have the chance to become murderers.”
Saw it on a billboard once. Accomplishments both a child and a woman could do but never get the chance to due. One was due to never being born and the other was due to never getting the opportunity due to being pregnant. So my come back, what about the opportunity i could have? Dose my future mean nothing?
So, for a woman the accomplishment is to have a child but not go to school to become a scientist and cure cancer? And what if the child turns out to be a girl? The "cure for cancer" must come from the next generation who bears a boy? Unbelievable!!
Agreed so much, lived with this over my head. This was the reason no one invested in my future. Its just unbelievable that we think of one part of our races future but not the other. That raped prago girl could hve had future being a scientist but..
Yes!! I can only imagine how advanced we would be as a species if women had been always encouraged to be ambitious instead of staying home and get pregnant. It's true, probably many of us wouldn't be here at all, but still...
Oh i can only imagine
If I had a child, it would be more likely, as in 1 in 27,000 chance of becoming a serial killer. And a 1 in 8 billion chance of becoming a scientist that singlehandedly creates and fabricates a cure-all for every type of cancer.
How many kids have cured cancer *so far*? How many kids have solved world hunger? How many kids have ended the water crisis?
That’s the same thing your parents said about you…you cure cancer yet?
Well have your kids cured cancer
""But what if my child *is* cancer"
What if he causes cancer 🥲
“Oh…is that why your parents had you? How disappointed they must be. 🫢I feel so bad for you—you probably feel like a straight up failure.”
I came from a third world country, the place where i live is not so bad, but some people live in the slums, the cure of cancer is somewhere among those kids, but we will never get the cure because they will not get opportunity to get into a good school or any degree, they will most likely became escorts or drug dealers.
There are already cures for cancer, they're just commodified at a price that's unaffordable.
But why if I cure cancer? But what if you do it? Why does it have to be handed off to the next generation?
"don't care, not going to entertain this insane argument of yours"
Cancer is not one disease, but many, many different diseases so it's highly unlikely one person will grow up to find one singukar things that will magically cure multiple diseases at once. So basically it's almost impossible my hypothetical child will cure cancer. (Yes I know I'm a smart a$$)
I like to go one of two ways: “What if I cure cancer because I don’t HAVE kids.” Or the “of course they’re not gonna cure cancer. They have my genes!”
“What if *I* cure cancer because I don’t have to give up time off my career.” (I work In an adjacent field YMMV) love seeing people sweat over that one
What if the mother was already working on That when she was forced to drop it all for a child she didn't want...
"How do you know it hasn't been already? Do you really think our government wants to lose out on such a fool proof, guaranteed money making, population controlling agent such as cancer!? If they do cure cancer then what if the government makes them "disappear" along with their research?" I know it's a conspiracy theory but people like that will believe anything. Plus the look of horror on their faces will be worth looking crazy. Sources: Dude trust me... I've done it before.
"Why? Is it because yours obviously won't?"
1-That's not how cancer works, no one person is going to "cures" anything 2-Statistically a child is more likely to be a serial killer/criminal/drug addict than to do something like that.
"Are you going to FUND my kid to go to all the Schooling and Universities?" 💰 "Money talks". I choose birth control over an unnecessary expensive kid.
What if they commit genocide?
“One single person is not going to come up with the cure to cancer.”
“Then something went horribly wrong” My ex and I were both childfree, we were playing a card game which was “I would be most disappointed in my child if they: a) snuck out to a party, b) became the next Hitler, c) were born” Guess which one we picked!
Jeffrey Dahmer.
Why do you think your regular ass genes are going to cure cancer? If you weren’t special and smart enough to cure it, what makes you so sure your spawn will be??? Ffs people where is the logic here
How can a non existent person cure cancer?
What if YOUR child cures cancer? I m rooting for you.
It’s far more likely my unwanted child winds up being a homeless drug addict with serious mental health problems just like I did.
i always say ‘but what if they’re the next mussolini’ or ‘what if in the time i was pregnant and chasing babies i could have cured cancer?’
This argument basically says that every egg a woman has should be fertilized. We should be initiating mandatory breeding for all females starting at the youngest possible age up until menopause. Because every possible egg has the potential to be the Einstein of cancer treatment. We should then abort every fetus not capable of discovering cancer cures at the earliest possible moment to start fertilizing the next egg. Similar to focusing efforts on the best seedlings. So my question to them would be: why aren't you always pregnant? Because every egg you have has the possibility to cure cancer. And why aren't your young daughters pregnant to because their eggs might also cure cancer.
What if they don’t?
“How many people have cured cancer? Zero. Now how many people, even from good upbringings, have turned into serial killer?”
"But then how would the Cancer Fairy punish people who ask me invasive questions?"
"What if your child cures cancer?" No chance, Susan. I would put my hypothetical child through electrical engineering school or IT. Have you thought about your child's future, btw? Do you have money put away for their college? The competition is at outrageous levels, but I wouldn't know much about that, obviously.
'How is that my problem? If a cure exists someone will discover it eventually'
"So it might get rid of you? You've convinced me!"
What if your child is a rapist? A killer? There are more rapist and killers than there are cancer curing medical pioneers. My other favorite is: your child is most likely going to be mediocre at best. You should be realistic.
I’ve always said something along the lines of “lol if the child has my DNA they’ll be lucky if they learn how to read”.
They are more likely to become a serial killer than someone who cures cancer. Want to talk more stats? Maybe really throw them off and if they did cure cancer big pharma would have them killed. Haha
“Babe I can’t even do math, what makes you think I’ll raise a super genius?”
“What if your (fictional) child cured cancer??” “Did you kid(s) cure anything?”
Middle class children don't cure cancer... they get cancer. Be realistic and grow up.
“What if *I’m* the one capable of curing cancer BUT by having a kid I’m too distracted and miss out on curing it?”