What if...?

jadeycakes · 3 days

I feel like this was written on the wall in a college dorm which I think is kind of hilarious.

jandalofdoom · 3 days

This is a good point.

Let's get everyone without an education and cut out their brains.

swrdswllngwhr · 3 days

What if there's no "cure" for cancer because it's not a disease like the flu but instead a wide spectrum of non-exclusive genetic disorders with little to no common causes or symptoms? Huh? What if, man?

antiproton · 2 days

What if some asshole who writes on walls doesn't understand how medicine works?

T3mporaryGold · 3 days

If we lived in a world where you were born with predisposed information like the cure for cancer, you wouldn't need an education.

jsoftz · 2 days

What if dogs had wings and could fly? I bet they would get into all sorts of trouble!

RatioFitness · 2 days

It's unlikely that a single person will be responsible for curing cancer. If there is a general cure for cancer (highly unlikely) it will be the result of many research groups.

Agnostalypse · 2 days

Just gonna throw this out there, considering how much reddit loves to hate on christians- this argument is about as retarded as the "abortion shouldn't be legal because we might accidentally abort the person who cures cancer." This is basically predestination bullshit....

perri93 · 2 days

they can write it on their mcdonalds application

welp_that_happened · 3 days

This is similar to an argument I have heard from pro-lifers... "what if the person who was supposed to find the cure for cancer was aborted?"
I think seeing it both ways is kind of dumb.. you can apply that argument to almost anything. "What if I was supposed to be the guy that cured cancer, but instead I went into IT? Oh no!"

Rajio · 2 days

What if this made sense?

im_too_literal · 2 days

This kind of logic is so faulty.

A true "cure" for cancer will never exist. It's a difficult thought to wrap my mind around, particularly as I will be losing a friend to cancer before the end of the year, short of a miracle.

But beyond that, it ignores the fact that there are so many serious problems in life that could theoretically be solved, but they require very intense and varied education. The person who solves the oil crisis will not likely be the same person who comes up with a 100% successful cancer treatment. Train everyone to "cure" cancer, and then no one will be able to fix the oil crisis or develop substitutes for rare minerals used in technology.

It also ignores the fact that every individual has the right to make their own life path choices. A person may be capable of becoming a doctor, but that doesn't mean that he has to or should. Maybe he'd be more content being an electrician or a farmer; the world needs electricians and farmers too.

cheepdogg · 2 days

Better yet, what if the cure for cancer were trapped in the mind of someone who just wastes their life and education surfing on the internet all day?

Dick_Serious · 2 days

What if reddit went one day without having retarded posts like this?

What if man!?

wsfarrell · 2 days

What if someone wrote a letter to the editor instead of defacing public property?

KamiTozzi · 2 days

What if the cure for cancer is written on a wall somewhere in blue sharpie, and just no one has found it yet?

Awesomeade · 2 days

What if that's not how the brain works? Because it isn't.

OMGitsted · 2 days

if you can't get a scholarship you probably won't find the cure for anything

HampeMannen · 2 days

That's not how research works.

lewavvy · 3 days

positive cynicism

Achalemoipas · 2 days

I say we kill that person to examine its brain immediately.

ser_dhusti · 2 days

What if it was inside the mind of a fetus that got aborted?

Or maybe both of these scenarios are dumb arguments?

akiiler · 2 days

What if one of those babies that were aborted would have gone to create a cure.. what if man..

bombproof · 2 days

Abe Lincoln was poor and scraped his way to fixing slavery by borrowing books...

dre__ · 2 days

Knock knock. Who's there. Weed. Weed who? Weedontneededucation.

Marmaladegrenade · 2 days

What if the next serial murderer is a quadriplegic?!

shmoove_cwiminal · 3 days

I would love to live in a world where everything was pre-destined. What a magical place it would be. No thinking required.

Untz234 · 2 days

What if you were retarded?

Friendshipcore · 3 days

That can be put different too. What if Hitler couldn't afford food and starved to death?

phuckHipsters · 3 days

Anyone who is capable of formulating a cure for cancer is definitely smart enough to find a way to fund their education.

St-Polo · 2 days

Science is discovered not created, it can't be trapped in someone mind. But, someone with the ability to find it could not afford education.

jayem711 · 2 days

What if they got a pell grant and /or worked through college or started at a small community college. Theen they can cure cancer....and aids

theGreatGoodbye · 2 days

My community college tuition has gone up 70% since Obama took office... That is what's weird.

Highpower1 · 2 days

What if it is trapped in the mind of a fetus about to be aborted?

42 Million abortions world wide every year. I wonder what we have lost in the name of choice.

speatears · 2 days

inception.

netraven5000 · 2 days

Maybe if they sold their idea about how to cure cancer, they'd have the money to go to school.

bjt23 · 2 days

I would downvote because of how preachy this is but I do believe in an even playing field as far as education goes...

NullNephilim · 2 days

Isn't this analogous to a profile argument? http://jgscroggins.hubpages.com/hub/A-Cure-For-Cancer-Aborted

senjutsuka · 2 days

Also, what if we've found multiple methods that cure cancer but they dont get funded b/c its not as profitable as long term multi-medicine treatments?

giveitago · 2 days

What if the cure for cancer is locked in the gene record of a plant species that we made extinct?

Toby-one · 2 days

Cancer is such a wide range of disease that there can never really be a single miracle cure for it so don't worry about it.

benalpert · 2 days

Too... many... hypotheticals...

newgirl07 · 2 days

My heart goes out to those in countries where you have to pay thousands of dollars to get a higher education. In Australia, all we have to do is get a good enough score in high school and we're in! No paying for our degrees untill we make over a certain amount of money a year, then they take small fortnightly payments! Even if you get a degree but don't earn over the set amount, you won't have to pay for it...

RidgeegdiR · 2 days

Its def not, only smart people discover new things.

jargonista · 2 days

Not to be a jerk, but probably not. Science, especially biology and especially cancer biology, is bloated right now with excess graduates. We already have our pick of the litter getting meaningful positions. What we need is more positions, not more scientists.

Then we'll talk.

Source: I'm a biologist.

tagrav · 2 days

I like to believe that it's already been created. But it's just not profitable enough.

Just lost my dad to a year long struggle with lung & liver cancer. Cancer makes a lot of money. One of his prescriptions was for something called Samsca a pill used to help raise his sodium levels. The prescription for a month was ~$23,000. He was on it for about 5 months.

After his death my mom had a full unused box sealed and even the pills are in sealed packets and she could not return them. What a waste of money. I wish she could've just given them to some cancer patient out there that might need them and can't afford it. Luckily my dad's insurance paid for most of it.

DooDooBrownz · 2 days

what if people didn't write stupid shit on public property?

SleeplessinOslo · 2 days

What if there are countries out there where education is practically free... wait, there are

Keltaris · 2 days

I understand the cure to cancer depends on people liking sob story statuses and images on Facebook

eazolan · 2 days

How does an Art history major come up with the cure to cancer?

Not all education is equal.

PhylisInTheHood · 2 days

What if black holes aren't really singularities, but God doing a goatsee

Only1Andrew · 2 days

What if I told you there is a cure to breast cancer but Susan G Komen uses the money they receive to find a cure to prevent the cure from being put out, and they also use the money they receive from donors to sue anybody else earning money for a cure. What if I told you, they don't want to release the cure because then the money stops.

dilkington11 · 2 days

Bathroom philosopher

baddabuddah · 2 days

First read "what if the cunt ..."

Zach2012ster · 2 days

What if the cure for cancer was already discovered and destroyed what if 9/11 was an attack upon ourselves to gain oil and increase security what if marijauna is not as bad for you as alcohol, what if nikola Teslas labarotory was destroyed after discovering free energy

yourbuddyjoe · 2 days

Science doesn't work like that. Discoveries are rarely independent. Multiple people will get to the same solution, it's just a matter of time. The guy who gets there first gets recognized and remembered for it but that is it.

hitlerwasright · 2 days

Bullshit.

Isaac Newton didn't have access to education because the black plague killed all of his teachers. And he turned out ok.

You can buy used physics textbooks dirt cheap on Ebay. You can't get knowledge from school... you can only get information.

If a poor person is ignorant, it's because they want to be.

IgnatiousReilly · 2 days

What if... the cure for cancer is trapped inside the mind of an aborted fetus?

hotcod · 2 days

Science is trying to build an working understanding of the "truth" of nature by applying the scientific method and building models of it. Even if there was simply "a cure for cancer" then that cure exist independently of any one person and will be discovered eventually as understanding moves forward.

There's a scientist who gave up on science and became a novelist because he felt that anything he could discover could and would be discovered by other people while anything he wrote would be uniquely his. Which is a shame really, it's true but there's got to be something in being the first person to have uncovered a new bit of reality to have understood the universe better in that way than any one else... unless some one else happens to have come up with the idea at the same time. Like the case of Darwin and Wallace, if something had happened to Darwin before he developed his theory then we'd still have had evaluation by natural selection discovered at the same time.

It's odd in that some times in that it's just seems to be the "right time" for an idea. All the building blocks of steam power that kick started the industrial revolution where present in ancient Greece and Rome but no one really put two and two together other than using it for party tricks likes opening heavy temple doors which was clear proof that steam could do work! But still it's just a case of individual effort towards progress being a case of timing more than anything.

Still the underlying idea here is fine, the more we educate people and the more people who can do research the quicker a "cure" is likely to pop up.

Lykoaster · 2 days

Then it looks like we ain't gettin' that cure for cancer...

MisterUnoriginal · 2 days

What if the cure for cancer has already been found multiple times only to be suppressed?

FakeSpellingErrors · 2 days

Just to help out the cause: MEME

Theoriginaldank · 2 days

Because knowledge is innate... trapped in our minds until school pull is out.

seweroutlet · 2 days

What if aliens landed and gave us the cure to cancer??

What if celebrities are all correct about politics?

What if using the words, "what if" mean absolutely nothing sometimes on how the world works?

sometimesijustdont · 2 days

I thought we already have a cure for cancer. You program viruses to attack the particular type of cancerous cells you have. The viruses self destruct after their job is done. Cancer cured.

johnnyonthespot6 · 2 days

what if the cure for cancer is something other than RADIATION and POISON

the cure for cancer has been known for a long time, by PhD's, who use natural herbs. If they get caught, they go to prison.

wake the fuck up.

Ror-sirent · 2 days

Ideas are not confined in one persons mind. They are universal, you just need someone who can find them. That could be anyone that tried hard enough. Someone without an education isn't eligible.

ConorMaximus · 2 days

"Its their own fault. They shouldn't have been born into a poor family" - Mitt Romney

yerm620 · 2 days

What if... the cure for cancer is trapped inside the mind of someone who was aborted?

jamheldion · 2 days

Conversely: What if the key to the destruction of all life on earth is trapped inside the mind of someone who can't afford an education?

stikdude · 2 days

By making a statement like this, you are then a person that believes in fate. If, then you are accepting that such a thing exists, consider this:

The person who cannot afford an education does not have the cure for cancer trapped in their mind. Or, rather, it would be better if we accepted that that cure will never be known, because they can't afford an education. They will never cure cancer, as it does not exist in their fate. I have the same argument for people that ask, "What if that aborted child would have cured cancer?" They wouldn't have. Their fate was to not live, not to cure cancer.

GruntyLover · 2 days

Then move to Denmark where education is free..

tsilb · 2 days

These people are treating a symptom. Race for the cause, not just the cure. Cancer was almost unheard of 100 years ago; let's prevent it in the first place.

gator_bites · 2 days

What if there is a cure, and they government keeps it to control population (like aids"

automaticmane · 2 days

or inside the mind of someone who is a fucking camel.

sittty · 2 days

stuck in head, you say?

griffith12 · 2 days

It's most likely locked inside a safe. If a cure for cancer came out it would be far to expensive for anyone to afford because it would have to offset the amount of money they can take from you over the course of repeated radiation treatments and surgeries, etc.

shadytradesman · 2 days

I'm not sure that's how ideas work.

JROXZ · 2 days

What if a single metastatic/angiogenic/oncogenic off switch was trapped inside the mind of someone who can't afford an education.

Salmonbread · 2 days

It goes without saying that it takes hard, consistent work to achieve anything worthwhile. Genius is not miraculously knowing every answer, and people that entertain this concept in the context of themselves are supremely arrogant. Genius is knowing that with investigation comes discovery, and that it is up to the individual to do what others will not.

shibalover19 · 2 days

That person can get a job and work his way though college like most of do.

TheRealTres · 2 days

besides the fact we have a cure for cancer already.

snarik · 2 days

As a cancer researcher makes me really disgruntled.

Herp derp, ima curin yer cancerz.

EricLe · 2 days

Actually the cure for cancer exists. It's trapped inside the hands of the illuminati.

shibalover19 · 2 days

Gardasil (an immunization) prevents 75% of the cases of cervical cancer & 90% of the cases of external genital warts. Yes, we have an immunization that prevents cancer!

TheWiseDevil · 2 days

Ayep. People and their familes and friends will just continue to suffer until that question is put to rest.

Ferret_Lord_Brent · 2 days

I don't think this person understands how knowledge works.

NazzerDawk · 2 days

The only options for getting rid of cancer are cutting it out and treating it chemically (chemo), so every cure will be some variation on those themes. Nanorobots that identify cancer cells and excise them is a variation of "cut it out", a super-chemical that targets nothing but cancer cells would be a variation on chemo.

So no, the idea that a person would have "floating about in their head" while uneducated wouldn't be a specific way to manufacture nanorobots or the method for engineering a chemical. Those things are the result of educated work, not simple idle consideration and thought-experiment. You don't just "come up" with a process like that, you come up with "what if we have a special radiation that only effects cancer cells?"

But anyway, the whole concept of someone having an idea already but not having the education to put it out there is nonsense by itself, it's not like every idea you will ever have is stored in your brain, waiting to be accessed by your consciousness when you get to the right level of education or something. Ideas are the product of an educated brain's processes.

EDIT: Oh, and radiation, but one could argue that is another form of "cutting it out".

TheSherbs · 2 days

What if the best shot we have at a cure for cancer goes unfunded because the people behind the knowledge made it publicly available and because of that the people with the money ignore it because they can't patent it and make money?

2hot2sexy4u · 2 days

he wouldn't need an education. didn't you watch good will hunting? HOW DO YOU LIKE THEM APPLES?

scales484 · 2 days

I feel like it's probably not...

Friiy · 2 days

Hopefully he/she would be motivated enough to work 2 jobs to afford college, not get knocked up, not smoke up their paycheck in weed, hang out with the wrong people. ...... Or lament about "woe is me", think themselves a poet and write on walls....

mygolly · 2 days

What if solutions already exist and people are too scared of the unfamiliar to search out truths

SidneyDavis · 2 days

Unfortunately, education as we know it is not the process of learning to think. It is the process of imparting knowledge. If the current level of knowledge does not contain a "cure for cancer", then educating someone will be ineffective in dealing with that degenerative disease.

SpecializedBiker · 2 days

What if the cure for cancer is in a child's brain that won't be born because of an abortion?

AxeManActual · 2 days

What if war kills, like, 100 Einsteins a year, man?

ivebeenhereallsummer · 2 days

What if the next Hitler was prevented from gaining power because he was not educated? Poor education saved us all from WWIII.

Wolfman87 · 2 days

That is retarded. There's no one magical person who will discover something. Maybe it will come sooner but it's not like there are these magical key people that if killed or held back will bring progress to a grinding halt.

supn9 · 2 days

We need a "What if" dance off gif!

V4refugee · 2 days

What if the answer to one of the greatest math theorems could have been calculated by my computer?

Irrelevant_muffins · 2 days

Someone once explained cancer to me as an evolution of cells that our body could not handle. Ever since I can't think of cancer as anything but a really fucked up X-Men character.

Michael_LaPorte · 2 days

What if it was in the mind of a baby that was aborted?

WhyIsItRainingAgain · 2 days

why do people randomly underline seemingly random words in a phrase? is it for emphasis or something? its something i never understood and absolutely hate. can someone explain that to me?

chaklong · 2 days

This is related to my theory that there are hundreds of potential Einsteins dying over in Africa everyday.

SOUTHPAWMIKE · 2 days

I appreciate the sentiment here, but realistically, if someone poorly educated, what is the actual chance they would have a working understanding of the mechanisms of most common cancer types? Wouldn't an education be the key to knowing enough about cancer to combat it? I think it's ridiculous to conjecture that someone could be in a situation where they are illiterate (read: incapable of expressing their ideas due to illiteracy) but are also somehow educated enough to figure out a "cure."

gambit87 · 2 days

Fuck them, everyone knows only rich people have ideas! - Mitt Romney

legion02 · 2 days

Then we cut that motherfucker open...

err4nt · 2 days

How many geniuses who could propel us into prosperity, musical prodigies who can heal the world through song, great artists who can inspire generations of new creativity - how many of those people that started life have been silently snuffed out because of abortion?

Just one of the thoughts that occurred to me that I can't find an answer for yet, but it makes me sad to think about. I know many people say it's a woman's right and such, but it's a woman's choice not to engage in activity that results in conception - it's not entirely fair to punish another person so severely for a miscalculation or lapse in self-control on your end. Can you imagine any other law allowing you to take life away from another person at your whim for any other reason? I can understand why people feel how they feel when they have an unwanted pregnancy, but that's life (in more ways than one). I can't understand how the law exists the way it does now, it baffles me.

PhotoShopNewb · 2 days

This argument could be made against abortion too.

Dutyxfree · 2 days

I see this as an epistemological contradiction.

Lonewolf2692 · 2 days

A believe this comment is a contradictory... silly uneducated people.

FokJulleNaaiers · 2 days

What if the cure for cancer was written on the back of the Declaration of Independence?

mch026 · 2 days

This quote makes me think of Sylar from Heroes...

CaliGolden_bear · 2 days

Eh all in good time. We don't want everybody educated quite yet

CharlieTango · 2 days

Well thats not possible since someone without an education would have no idea how the science behind cancer research works

eacxxxz · 2 days

There are cures for cancer... But they're trapped inside the minds of people who can't figure out how to make them profitable enough.

enkrypt0r · 2 days

I appreciate the sentiment, but things like this bother me in much the same way that the whole, "If you don't way abortion/gay marriage, then don't get one" mentality. Of course I suppose abortion and gay marriage, but there are zero people who think that anyone wants to force any individual to get one, nullifying the whole argument.

In much the same way, this says that we sound fund education better (which we should), but it is ridiculously unlikely that a single person will cure cancer. Even if it were, it would not be the result of some genetic predisposition to figuring out how to cure cancer. Figuring out something like that will be the result of research which could be carried out by many capable people. If we went back in time and stopped Alexander Fleming from inventing penicillin, it's not as if no one would've figured it out. It would've been someone else, maybe a little while later, but it would've happened nonetheless.

tl;dr I don't care if I agree with you, if you're making a shitty argument then you're making a shitty argument.

areels · 2 days

I think i have it trapped in my brain, i believe i worth to give a try

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