Speaking in general terms, cancer is not a disease like a common cold.
you don't say
I am at peace with that, for we need to make space for the next generation (only adding people to planet earth would not be sustainable, as resources are scarce - imagine nobody would ever die). Being on this planet for a limited time period makes it more important to make the right choices, because we have only one life
This suggests a Malthusian, zero-sum world in which no new net value can be created. Someone could have said that 200 years ago, yet living standards are higher than ever in spite of more people than ever. Poverty rates worldwide continue to fall.
And it's not just cancer, there are many ways one may pick the unlucky straw: it is not widely known, but the number of people who die from a heath attack in their 20s is significant. Make the best of every minute you have, and live it as if it were your last.
This doesn't mean we need to accept death when it can be prevented. The promise and hope of technology is to expand human potential and not have to settle for fate. Someone again could have said this 200 years ago about any other medical condition that is now treatable or curable today,
This is the sort of defeatist logic that is popular online these days, but we won't have to settle for just giving up.
It's definitely a form of fatalism; people who hold views like this are viewing it from a certain state of consciousness, and so they see the world through a lens that reflects the negative (Not that there aren't plenty of negative things going on in the world and the environment, but there is much more to be optimistic about).
From my point of view if you look at the state of humanity objectively, it's pretty obvious that most of us are living our best lives compared to any time in history. Even the fact that we understand some of the damage we might be doing to the planet is a huge leap forward, since understanding the problem is the first step to finding a solution. And we have more tools and solutions than ever before in history: earth observation/space travel, genetic engineering, renewable energy, powerful, cheap and abundant computing, rapid prototyping etc, etc.
Speaking in general terms, cancer is not a disease like a common cold.
you don't say
I am at peace with that, for we need to make space for the next generation (only adding people to planet earth would not be sustainable, as resources are scarce - imagine nobody would ever die). Being on this planet for a limited time period makes it more important to make the right choices, because we have only one life
This suggests a Malthusian, zero-sum world in which no new net value can be created. Someone could have said that 200 years ago, yet living standards are higher than ever in spite of more people than ever. Poverty rates worldwide continue to fall.
And it's not just cancer, there are many ways one may pick the unlucky straw: it is not widely known, but the number of people who die from a heath attack in their 20s is significant. Make the best of every minute you have, and live it as if it were your last.
This doesn't mean we need to accept death when it can be prevented. The promise and hope of technology is to expand human potential and not have to settle for fate. Someone again could have said this 200 years ago about any other medical condition that is now treatable or curable today,
This is the sort of defeatist logic that is popular online these days, but we won't have to settle for just giving up.